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Don’t Make These Mistakes When Selling Batteries - Jonathan Wilson
89 Plays1 day ago
After getting featured in his own podcast, Jonathan Wilson is back again to discuss technical shifts in the industry, educating customers, and the mindset of catering to the needs of the consumer. There have been drastic market changes since his first appearance, and it's important that we take a second look at our approach in today's solar industry.
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Transcript
The Journey Begins
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. went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask? 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.
Reunion and Transition
00:00:41
Speaker
All right, what's going on, solopreneurs? We are back with someone that is coming on for the second time here in the podcast. We have the great honor of welcoming Mr. Jonathan Wilson back to the show. Thanks for coming on with us for the second time, Jonathan.
00:00:54
Speaker
Appreciate you, Taylor. Excited to be here. Really fun to do the podcast. actually had the opportunity to be on your podcast, the Go go Green podcast, right? Yes, sir. So we did that last week and I think that'll be dropping soon. And then then I'm like, man, it's been a minute since we had ah Jonathan on. So it's like, let's run up another one for the solopreneurs too.
00:01:15
Speaker
So it should be a good time. And I'm excited to ask you probably few of the same questions you asked me and um you might have some better thoughts than I did on at least a couple of questions. so You had a great interview, man. I'm excited to drop it. There's so many nuggets that you gave that were so practical. So yeah, look out for that one for sure.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, should be fun. But yeah, man. So I think it's been a couple years, two, three years out of Go Look since we last did the podcast. And um I know on the first one, we ah were really focused on the referrals. you were You were a referral master. So that's really good podcast. We're going link to that if you haven't had the chance to go dig into that one definitely check it out but yeah this one we'll probably touch on few more referral stuff if you have any uh new things to share on that first of all just kick it off i know at the time transitioning over from sunrun to power been there ever since i believe and so yeah what's that transition been like and i guess a reader's digest version of what you've been up to in the past couple years since we last heard from you jonathan
Diverse Solar Solutions
00:02:16
Speaker
Thank you for that. Yeah, appreciate you having me on. So yeah, it was two and a half years ago. i think it was, it was at door to door con, I want to say. Yeah. And then um I was in the middle of kind of shifting over from Sunrun Direct, which prior to that was Vivint Direct. Shout out to all those those guys there, some of the best salespeople I've ever worked with. I made a big shift. I don't like switching companies. I was with Vivint and Sunrun. that same team for a little over six years.
00:02:45
Speaker
And, um you know, I try to stay loyal to the people I'm working with. And it was a really, it was a big decision, you know? So the the short version of kind of why I did it is i feel like I was, I was ready to level up in terms of what I was offering my customers. you know um I always say that my my friends at Sunrun, great salespeople, they're selling you know one product with maybe one or two different configurations of equipment.
00:03:13
Speaker
and And it's in a simple sale. you know Hey, we're the best, we're the biggest, look at us, rah, rah, rah. you know ah They are you know the biggest company in the industry. And it was fun. I had a lot of fun there, ah was shaped there. And then, you know, kind of what I've shifted to now, which is the full power broker model where I have ah currently seven different finance programs, unlimited different kind of permutations of equipment configurations and customization. And it's been a lot. I would say that i i kind of shifted from the Solar Bro sales mentality a little bit, right? No offense to my Solar Bros out there, but the mentality of just kind of focused on selling one thing to actually understanding the product at a much deeper level and the products at a much deeper level. Yeah, excited. it's It's been a fun journey and I continue to do trainings and learning and
00:04:05
Speaker
That's been a big part of my journey is is trying to understand like the market really as holistically as I can here in California. you know Who are the players? Who are the installers? Who are the finance providers? What are their contract terms? What are the equipment configurations, the warranties, the guarantees, all those little ins and outs? I'm still learning, but I feel like I'm pretty knowledgeable about these things now. which is helpful because one size doesn't fit all with solar.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I think we've seen that over the evolution over the past several years. There are new products, new you know financing programs, and the ones who aren't keeping up or just selling one product, it kind of limits what you can what you can sell, what you can provide as a solution to to your customers. So I've really been um happy that I made that choice. And I, you know with all due respect, would never go back. Well, no, glad to hear it's been a good transition for you. And, you know, I know some people, some people would say they like the simplicity of Sunrun and everything, in just one product. But yeah, do you
Finance Flexibility
00:05:05
Speaker
feel like it was a learning curve? Like there's a lot of new information, lot of new systems you had to learn going from Sunrun, where it's just like you got your one, you know, one easy closing process. Now you got to know all these different portals. Was that a pretty, you process to learn that?
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I shifted to power specifically. What makes them unique, I would say there's a couple things, but one of the main things is they have a fully integrated platform, like nothing in the industry.
00:05:34
Speaker
Literally, I just have one sign in to be able to sell Enfin, Lightreach, Goodleap, you know, concert propel, participate finance. I mean, there's a whole list. I can literally sell all of them without logging into a bunch of different portals. And I can switch between the options in, you know, 30 seconds or less in house with the homeowner. And I haven't seen any yet. I mean, I'm sure that with all the AI software as a service, people flooding in, you know, building cheap software. Now I'm sure more people will try to do something similar. i haven't seen it yet. pretty much the way it works is like you said, Taylor, it's like you have to log into that particular finance partners portal, build out a proposal, maybe it's linked to like an Aurora or a Solo or some other design tool. And and it's kind of annoying and I don't really wanna deal with that. So that's why I made the choice of Power because they've taken a lot of that
00:06:27
Speaker
ah friction out. But yes, to answer your question, it's been a big learning curve. It's not for everybody. I think I've made the mistake of trying to ah recruit some of the solar bros and they had too much bro to be able to keep up with what we do. so yeah Yeah, it's definitely not ah for everybody. so yeah yeah Yeah, well, and that's one of the, ah you know, arguments against it. Something to be tough for some people, you know, especially we've got some older guys on our team. It's like technology to have to know all these different portals and logins. And now you got to select this specific equipment. Like ah anyone that's been in Aurora, you know, you have to have the exact equipment configuration.
00:07:10
Speaker
And, ah you know, I've even worked with installers in the past where they have like panels that can be selected as options in there. But then you go and sign the deal and they're like, oh, yeah, you know what, we're not even using those panels.
00:07:22
Speaker
Like, okay, well, why did you have that as an option if you're not using the panels? Yeah. They're like, well well, we have it in this other state, but we don't have it here. ah like, oh my gosh. And then have to go and resign the customer because they didn't have that specific panel.
00:07:34
Speaker
So it can just be like a headache sometimes if you don't know, you know, your portals, your logins. And ah yeah, to your point, I am seeing a lot more with the AI integration. I know at my company now.
00:07:46
Speaker
They do have, um it doesn't sound quite as good as you guys have it, but they do have a tool where you see all the different proposals in one place that is making it a little bit easier.
00:07:56
Speaker
So yeah hopefully we see it get better and better with things like that because yeah, it can just cause you know buyer friction when when there's technology issues and all these different things you have to learn. and it can make it I've seen it make it tough for guys to go from setting to closing too. There's so much they have to learn and then As a leader, you got to be constantly answering phone calls. Oh, how do I do this? How do i do that?
00:08:19
Speaker
So yeah, what
Adapting to New Tech
00:08:20
Speaker
type of... I know you guys are big on trainings and everything at Power. see you guys in that big stage where there's like, it seems like a thousand people on Zoom watching, which is which is cool. yeah What type of... Do you guys have any type of trainings you do or how what's what's the way that you guys have helped people um kind of get a grasp on all these different you know tools and and logins and stuff? Yeah, I mean, the technology definitely helps a lot. Yeah, to your point, I noticed this at Sunrun as well, even when the technology was even more simple. Yeah, once you're over like 45, 50, I've noticed that the challenges on the tech side, you know, it' just like you didn't grow up with that type of level of technology. So it can be a little bit tricky, the learning curve.
00:09:01
Speaker
You know, a lot of these, you know, tech things are, it's like, yeah, i'm as a leader, i'm I'm oftentimes just fielding texts and calls like, hey, Jonathan, is this equipment figuration right? Like I'm actually kind of looking off to the side right now and I'm seeing one of my reps texting me right now and he's, he's telling me this same literally what we're talking about. Hey, which configuration do we use? Hey, what about, you know, and it's nonstop, like literally. And sometimes it's like, Hey, the burden of leadership, right. can be a challenge as a leader to like, you're like trying to build your own deals, like, you know, design your own systems. And, you know, you put on trainings. I've been recording a lot and putting them on my YouTube channel. And I'm just like, hey, watch this recording. I've been sending out, I've already got like almost 100 views in the past couple weeks on one specific design proposal training. I'm getting, you know, people reaching out and I'm just like, look, I can't repeat myself a million times. Like this is insane, right? As a business owner. yeah
00:09:51
Speaker
So it's like, You kind of have to start thinking like a business owner once you're a team leader at this point, I feel like even if you're within you know an organization, like that's really what we're doing. Like it's running a business with inside of a business. It's a full time thing. People are hitting you up all the different times of the day. Why isn't this working? There's a glitch with this. There's a problem with that. And they're usually like user error 90% time, you know? They just don't you know keep up with all of it because it's changing so fast. And I can even speak for our team over at Power because of how fast things are changing. Every single week I log into my portal and I'm like, that's new. they didn't you know And they don't even, there's too many updates to even um like keep everyone up to speed. like It's a living tool, like it's alive and literally it's changing and adapting constantly. And so I think for some people that aren't used to that, they're used to kind of like the analog world a bit more. It's a bit overwhelming, you know, even for myself sometimes I'm just like, oh my gosh, like we just integrated green button data into our proposal tools where you can now request green button data directly within our proprietary tool. We added two new finance partners within the past week.
00:11:00
Speaker
You know, so it's it's crazy, man. it's It's a lot to keep up with, but it's also a lot of fun because I know that a lot of the competitors aren't going to be able to keep up. So that's what I tell myself. Hey, if I just got to stay in front of it and, you know, we I believe we have the best technology to do that. so Yeah, and it's good. They're simplifying things as we talked about. But yeah, I know something something I try to do is leading my other guys is just get people in the habit of instead of just directly answering their question, try to teach them where to find the answer first instead of constantly hitting you up. Because it's like, especially yeah when you, I don't know you've noticed, but especially more, you know, solar bro-ish companies, everyone has ADD. They just want an answer now. They don't want them to go like look things up and do it.
Battery Sizing Issues
00:11:45
Speaker
But if we do that for 20 people, then it's like we're going to go crazy as leaders. So um yeah, that's that's cool that you're pointing to guys to your training and teaching them how to fish for themselves instead of just giving them fish. right It's like that's how they can be leaders too. And that's how...
00:12:02
Speaker
I think people can grow as if they learn to go and look up the answer. And I've had mentors too. It's like i had to learn that myself because I was the guy that was constantly hitting people up for the answer.
00:12:12
Speaker
And then finally, had leaders be like, hey, you know, you can look in this video and it'll tell you exactly. you don't have to be hitting me up. I'm like, oh, OK, guess I'll go look over there. do that but yeah so a lot a lot of changes but i'm curious jonathan for you you know the first podcast we did i'm trying to think i believe we were and might have been as we're transitioning to nem3 with batteries i guess i'd have to go but it was you remember it was about six months after or so i want to say six seven months after okay So yeah, I guess we we're in that already. But um yeah, as you look back and see the changes since then, what what have you noticed with the just industry in general selling batteries now? um You feel like that's been a pretty ah smooth, pretty pretty natural thing selling the batteries or what, I don't know, what mistakes you see people still making? and
00:13:01
Speaker
but don't get so alert Don't get me started. i can feel my heart rate rising as you ask me this question. I get so freaking riled up by this question. And i get I'll be honest with you guys. i get I get angry, to be honest, because I see so many people screwing this up and it's making the industry worse, not better. Again, maybe it's that bad news travels fast. So I'm just... Hopefully it's just I'm seeing the 5% or whatever of people that are screwing things up. But unfortunately I've seen that it feels like it's a lot more. I don't know the exact percentage rate of what people are educated, but a lot of these solar people now, it's not even solar that in California. We do batteries is really what we do.
00:13:42
Speaker
I always tell when I'm training, I tell my reps, look, you talk to the you know the other guys, the competitors, they're going to say, oh, well how many solar panels do you need, Mr. Homeowner? That's not the right conversation. The correct conversation is how many batteries do you need and then how many solar panels do you need to charge those batteries? That's the proper way to think about it. And so I see undersizing batteries like probably 99% of the time, like it's a big problem. when I get competitive quotes. Like I'll give you one example. i was sitting with this guy several months ago and he's one of those guys that had a stack of quotes and had notes and was just jotting down everything I was saying. And and he said, well, you know you're more expensive. And I said, we're very competitive. We're definitely not more expensive. And he said, well, yeah, no, you're like 40 bucks a month more than this other company.
00:14:33
Speaker
And I said, well, I explained to you for like the past 20 minutes, very detailed how the battery works, right? And I always say like just a simple way is every 15 minutes that smart meter is doing what's called netting, where it's tracking how much power is being exported. So every 15 minutes, you're either using the power produced by the solar,
00:14:55
Speaker
you're storing the power produced by the solar or you're exporting the power produced by the solar. And so it's it's use it, store it, lose it. That's the framework. Use it, store it, lose it. And if you're not storing enough power, what's gonna happen is during the daytime when 80% of the sun is you know hitting your rooftop and you're gone at work or or doing other things, Those batteries are gonna get filled up quick or battery. A lot of these reps are selling one battery. And then all that power is being exported for essentially free to the power grid.
00:15:26
Speaker
And then you're buying it back at full retail price at night once that one battery that the rep told you is gonna work depletes. And now it's a double whammy. You know, you're giving away, I've seen systems where you're giving away 30, 40, 50% of your power that you're generating for free essentially.
00:15:42
Speaker
And then buying that same electricity back at full retail price. and you're putting the customers into a terrible situation, terrible. So I was with this guy and I explained this to him, broke it all down.
00:15:53
Speaker
And I said, well, we're, we're he's like 40 bucks and I'm like, well, this is because we have one more battery. Everybody else is offering one battery. You don't need one battery. You need two. Like you had a couple of bids where it was like one, five kilowatt. One was like a 10 kilowatt. And then one was a 13.5. I was like, I'm doing two Teslas. That's 27 kilowatts versus your other bids.
00:16:12
Speaker
are between five and 13.5 kilowatts of storage. And I said, so look, let me show you. I pulled off one of the Teslas and we were like 15 bucks a month lower than you know the other guy that he was considering.
00:16:26
Speaker
And I said, so look, we're actually cheaper. And he just pauses and looks at me and I look back at him and I say, but if I sell you this system, Mr. Homeowner, I'm gonna have to block your phone number because you're gonna be so upset with the results.
Educating Customers
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, and I said that to him and he just looked at me like, is this guy serious? you know And I'm like, yeah, I'm i'm i'm dead serious. you know like this is This is a serious thing. And I tell customers, I go, look, this is so serious. If you make the wrong decision, you will have a nightmare experience. like You will have one of those horror story experiences that you might've heard about before if you make the wrong decision. So I hope you understand the weight of this decision. It's a big decision.
00:17:10
Speaker
you know which is not how I used to sell. Before when we sold solar, it was like it was a light decision. You try to keep it light, keep it moving. It's just a simple bill, lowering your rates. like It was a simple sale.
00:17:20
Speaker
and Because it was a simple sale, it brought in a lot of simple-minded people to sell the product. and Now it it takes a little bit more nuance and and intelligence to sell it and And some homeowners, i think they I think this is the psychology I've i've picked up.
00:17:38
Speaker
Some homeowners think this, and I'll even address this with the homeowner, they'll say like, well, they look at me like skeptically. And ah so I'll say, well, look, a lot of homeowners, they think that, oh, if I add one more battery, that I'm making more money.
00:17:51
Speaker
It's actually the opposite. If I take off one battery and make this monthly payment look lower, so you think you're going to save more money, I can actually make a bigger commission because these batteries are like 10,000 bucks piece.
00:18:04
Speaker
So that, that rep who's, you know, offering you a lower payment, but with one less battery, they're just taking all that, that margin, that $10,000, that's what's happening. So you kind of have to educate and peel back the curtain for homeowners.
00:18:17
Speaker
and be like, hey, did the, so like one of my favorite strategies, you can take it because wanna see the industry level up. So if it help helps you make more sales, then great. In my discovery calls, I'll ask the homeowner, I'll say, hey, I'm just curious, have you talked to anybody for solar before, right? In California, the answer's almost always yes. Oh yeah, we talked to this person, we talked to that person.
00:18:38
Speaker
I go, fantastic. Did anybody ah ah that you talked to have you pull your green button data from Southern California Edison or from SDG&E? Did any of them have you pull that green button data?
00:18:50
Speaker
And I asked them that 99% of the time the answer is- I think what's that? yeah What are you talking about? And I go, yeah, actually, ah that's the big problem. A lot of these solar people, you know, they're just a lot of these young kids coming in from Utah. They ship them in every summer. Ha ha ha. Right.
00:19:07
Speaker
And they're not trained on the product. And they're selling you a six figure contract with no understand. They're not engineers. They're not educated. right And i hate to throw the shade, but that's a lot of times what people are experiencing. you know And I say, hey, if you haven't had somebody analyze your green button data, then you know you're missing out on like an opportunity to to get some real savings, real numbers. and And sometimes you find, I mean, there has been a couple times where I found that there are reps that maybe you don't have to necessarily pull green button data to have accurate battery sizing. But I'm telling you, some of the top people I know in the solar game, I do private coaching sessions, obviously confidentiality, I won't you know mention any names, but these are guys who are doing more installs than me. you know They're doing 100 installs you know in a year, they're doing high volume.
00:19:57
Speaker
and I get on private coaching calls with them and I'm like, hey, how are you doing? Oh, I talked to this guy and that guy. And the crazy thing is, they're getting advice from like people that I wouldn't consider to be dumb, like people who are like selling the battery products themselves, like the Enphase battery salespeople or the Tesla battery people, and they're giving they're all giving bad advice. So here's the general advice that I hear in California, that's dead wrong. The general advice that I hear is for every one kilowatt of solar, you need roughly two kilowatts of storage.
00:20:30
Speaker
and Terrible advice. Just to give you an idea before I tell you what the actual range should be, on my house personally, I have for every one kilowatt of solar, i have 3.9, almost four kilowatts of storage.
00:20:46
Speaker
So I have a 6.8 kilowatt system with two Tesla batteries, so 27 kilowatts. of storage. Now I show, I'm going to be releasing more content and share, but I show all my customers, I pull up the Tesla app on my phone and and I show them, I'm like, hey, like this is like literally ah you know how much power or how how much of the time I'm off grid. like i can I can even pull it up real quick you know right now.
00:21:13
Speaker
And basically, um oh yeah, exactly right. When we're on a podcast, server maintenance, that's exactly right. That's technology. That's amazing how technology works. Yeah. But, oh, we're doing server maintenance, right? When we're live streaming. up yeah But yeah, technology is great. But basically, I can tell you the answer. And that is I'm off grid 95 to 98% of the time.
00:21:40
Speaker
Like literally i have months so I could show you the past few months where I'm on grid 1%. I call it leakage where basically we turn on everything at the same time. There's a spike in demand and it pulls for a split second or two off the grid. And it does that a couple of times throughout the month. So like I have months that I have, you know, 1.7 kilowatt hours of usage for the month from the utility grid.
00:22:02
Speaker
Wow. Right. and that's how it should be built. So the correct ratio I tell people when I train is a minimum of one to three. So for every one, kit if you do a 10 kilowatt system, that's at least 30 kilowatt hours of storage, maybe even 3.5. Right. And it, you know, and it can vary based upon when you use it. Right. All of my solar nerds that I i learned from who are really nerds like myself, they'll they'll say, well, yeah, it depends on when you use power and the answer is correct. Right. So like even with with EV battery or um EV cars, I see people like selling people's systems based upon total usage. When you look at their profile and like 60% of their usage is in the middle of the night to charge their electric car, solar and batteries are not a good solution for those homeowners or offsetting that power. You can't really offset that power, you know, so like
00:22:53
Speaker
just the nuance that's required to design solar and batteries. So a lot of these people just went to other markets where it was a simple pitch. They just left California, which is fine. You know, hey, go sell solar somewhere else. That's that's all good. um You know, where it's that kind of, you know, idiot-proof sales model where you could just know nothing about the product and sell it and make, you know, 5Gs or whatever. um you can't do that in California. It's just not a thing. So,
Energy Independence Realities
00:23:21
Speaker
yeah. yeah. That's, yeah, that's fascinating, man. And yeah I'm learning a lot from things you said. I'll be honest. I don't really, I've gotten green button data a few times, but it's not really like a typical um thing that I've been doing. But yeah, something I've heard is SDG&E.
00:23:38
Speaker
That's where I'm mostly selling Edison. And I know we're talking mostly California here, but um I've heard for Edison, you usually have to sell more battery than with SDG&E. um And they have the whole you know down here they could put on the ev rate plan where it's from 12 to 6 a.m they get an extremely low rate which i don't believe they have that in edison correct um so is that correct it's generally you would want more yeah with uh SDG&E, correct. I actually don't try to offset EV charging at all.
00:24:11
Speaker
um I just say, hey, just get we're going to get you on the EV plan. You're going to charge in the middle of the night. It's super low. It's lower than we could really even get you with solar and batteries. So it doesn't make sense to offset that power. right so we're just going to um and and Edison is different though because we don't have that plan.
00:24:28
Speaker
um The nighttime rates are lower, but they're still about 26 cents a kilowatt hour. So what I try to do is if I have a situation where like I all the time come across people who have, you know, husband, wife, family, they've got two or three electric cars. And i always say, hey, can you take one of those electric cars and charge it during the day? Is that possible?
00:24:46
Speaker
you know and And usually the answer is they can take one of the cars and charge during the day. I say, okay, cool, because then we can just pull straight from the sun, pass through all that capacity straight into the to the car battery and use it as a secondary battery. And that's the only case where I would recommend in Edison territory sizing the batteries potentially a little bit smaller is if you can for sure do that.
00:25:06
Speaker
that kind of scenario. But again, i think um what salespeople do is, again, they want to make the sale and they're trying to make money and they're trying to make the numbers look competitive. And even in California where the rates are high, if you're saving somebody, i don't know, $100 a month, that's not going to change their life in this economy, you know, especially in California. $100, you could spend that in two seconds. like Like, it's it's not a big deal. So...
00:25:28
Speaker
You know, a lot of reps still are stuck on the savings mentality, right? And then the homeowners are too, because they've been conditioned by all the salespeople they've spoken with over the years, saving, saving, savings. And i always tell my reps, that's not what we sell.
00:25:43
Speaker
What we sell is off-grid freedom. Like we sell protection of rates. We sell locking in right now. and protecting you and hedging you your your your rates against an unpredictable rising utility. And then i you know train on telling that story, right? The AI data centers, the EV, the solar adoption, all these you know forces forcing the rates up. you know And don't be fooled by these politicians coming out telling us, oh, we're gonna wag our fingers at the utilities and make them lower their rates by 50% or, oh, we're gonna investigate you PG&E, bull crap.
00:26:18
Speaker
there's There's no way some politician's gonna come in and do that. So there is no savior. No one's coming to save you, right? and the only way you can get you know free from this is if you have the the batteries. The batteries are like two thirds of the equation. Right. And so I really focus on showing the customers, you know, OK, let's break down your bill. This is what's called your base load. This is your lowest usage on the bar graph or on the graph. And it shows you're using, you know, 30 kilowatt hours daily in the off season. And then on on peak season, you're using up to 60 kilowatt hours in a day.
00:26:53
Speaker
So how do we size the batteries? Well, we size the batteries usually pretty close to your base load. That's generally what I found to be a good rule of thumb as well. It's not always the case, but like if their base load's 30 kilowatt hours, I want to size the batteries close to 30 kilowatt hours.
00:27:08
Speaker
Now in the off season, does that mean we're going to fully utilize that second battery or that that third battery? no But here's the thing, I would rather have two or three months where that other extra battery's not being fully utilized to have the other eight, nine, 10 months where you're using that extra battery. And the customers are gonna have a better experience. So I've seen, again, I'll say it again, if you're selling solar in California,
00:27:32
Speaker
I would say there's probably a 90% chance or more that you need to add one more battery to your proposals. And if you need help, reach out. um I'm sure Taylor, you're happy to help too, but I'll speak for myself. I'm happy to give free coaching, literally. It's that important.
00:27:47
Speaker
Every single customer that gets sold an idea that doesn't align with reality harms our industry. And we have way too many of those stories. Yeah, 100 percent. Well, I love that, man. And I'm learning a lot about batteries from you. So, yeah, you're definitely i well versed on batteries. I'm still learning some of these things. But another scenario that I've seen a lot, Jonathan, curious to see what you do about these situations. So in ah Edison, you know, a lot of these more like desert towns, we see all the time where people are using a massive amount of power in the summer.
00:28:18
Speaker
But then after the summer, their usage drops to like very low. um And so, you know, if you want to actually offset their summer usage, you got to size a way bigger system because it's like way more way more power. um So i don't know if you guys do the same, but what we've...
00:28:34
Speaker
try to do a lot of times is just size it more based off the lower months and then just set the expectation for the homeowner hey the summer months you're just gonna pay a bill for some of those months um to edison just because it doesn't make sense to size it way bigger and then you know do a bigger battery and all that would you guys do the same in situations like that Yeah, it depends. I mean, I call it the Goldilocks method, right? Sizing it just right because most, I would say, the issue that I see most reps make again is too many panels to battery ratio. So like Tesla has been a really popular product. Assuming that a house in California doesn't have any shade, it's just got normal sun hours, you know, the correct ratio is for every eight to 12 panels, you want one Tesla battery. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. 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. 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.
00:29:42
Speaker
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. 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 neighborhood.
00:29:58
Speaker
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 SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show. you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:30:13
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.
00:30:26
Speaker
Okay, back to the show. I see all the time people doing 16, 18, 20 panels, panels with one Tesla battery. Again, for reference on my house, I have 16 panels and two Tesla batteries. So that's eight panels to one battery ratio. And we do have a little bit of shade as well.
00:30:45
Speaker
So and it works like a dream. Now, if I were to show you the discharging and and kind of the battery usage in the winter, we're not using that second battery almost at all, like close to close to zero. um you know Maybe slightly if there's a little spike of usage for a day or two. um But then the rest of the year, we're using percentage of that second battery. Into the summer, we're going to use close to full capacity. we might even We'll see in the peak of the summer, we might even not use that full second battery. Now, these batteries do have a degradation rate that's more aggressive. So I like to think about this too. It's like, well, if you're selling, especially if you're selling like a TPO, which most of the market's selling third party ownership systems, and they're not going to fork out 10 grand to add an extra battery out of their own pocket later, you need to go aggressive on the battery as well, because that battery is going to degrade. It might perform decent in the year one, but year five, how is it going to be performing?
00:31:43
Speaker
So you have to like think for the future. And again, i always tell that to my homeowners, like, you know, a lot of these salespeople out here, they just want to show you the lowest possible monthly payment because all they they're thinking about is saving, saving, savings.
00:31:55
Speaker
And all those savings is a byproduct of what we do, Mr. Homeowner. The main thing we want to do is make sure we don't just have power for you now, but power obviously five, 10 years from now. And specifically, it's around your storage.
00:32:09
Speaker
We need to make sure you have enough power to store because that storage is freedom. You can use that power whenever you want. Obviously, the solar only works during a limited period time of the day. The batteries work on demand, right? Whenever you need that power. So, you know, to answer your question with that, I will show like an accurate usage graph and I'll show juxtaposition like a January production versus January usage versus like ah an August production and an August usage.
Balancing Costs and Efficiency
00:32:37
Speaker
And there are a lot of cases in Edison or any territory where you have maybe one or two months in the summer where the consumption exceeds production of the system. So there's going to be a a little true up there.
00:32:51
Speaker
And you also typically always have in winter months, like December and January, where the usage is lower, or excuse me, the ah production is lower because there's less sun out. And so you're going to have a little true up there. So typically, I would say even for a house that's built you know correctly, um you're still going to see two to four months out of the year where there's an expected true up of some amount, you know maybe 10 to 20%. I know for my house, with it being built, again, correctly with a lot of knowledge, December and January, I was still on grid about 20%. And that was just because of low production of the solar. Well, so the tricky thing is, and I think some reps struggle just because to your point, I think a lot of reps are still out there trying to sell as savings being the main benefit.
00:33:38
Speaker
And um I love what you're saying about, hey, how solar exchange savings shouldn't be the main benefit anymore. Should be more about rate protection, peace of mind, things like that. Just because, I mean, that was like...
00:33:51
Speaker
you know Five years ago in California, we were selling on savings, but now it should be more about future proofing. And that's how you still get sales with little lower bills. Because i mean if people have a low bill, it's like you're never saving them money anymore, especially if you're um selling the system correctly. But I think another area where it gets a little tricky um is you know you talk about...
00:34:12
Speaker
How it should maybe be like, like three to one kilowatts to battery size. But in those situations where it's like, okay, you have, um, you know, like a four, like five kilowatt system. Yeah. Ideally you'd have, yeah um, based on your math, like 15 kilowatts of batteries. Right.
00:34:28
Speaker
But I think reps struggle because they're like, okay, well, if I add enough battery for that, because a lot of times you can't add like 15 kilowatts of battery for using Tesla Powerwalls, it's like you got to do ah two batteries now.
00:34:40
Speaker
And so it it gets little tricky because it's like, okay, well, if I add them another battery, then now they're probably paying quite a bit more than what their monthly average is. And yeah, they set some size correctly and that's the best scenario for them.
00:34:52
Speaker
But now they're paying, you know, a decent amount more than what their average is. So it's like, do we want to have them pay more and have a size correctly? Or do we want to have it a little less and just say, hey, you're going to pay a little bit to the utility.
00:35:03
Speaker
So, yeah, don how do how do you deal with these kind of like trickier scenarios where you can't like get the battery sizing exactly? Do you just set the, you know, set the frame with the homeowner or on a smaller usage scenario it is more challenging right because like even on my on my house our annual usage was pretty low it was like 8 000 kilowatt hours and i built a system that's going to produce you know almost 10 000 kilowatt hours and then again put two tesla batteries on there which is aggressive i and understand uh probably wouldn't do that for
00:35:35
Speaker
just the average house. But um yeah, I don't, it's not a perfect science, but again, there's a right and a wrong. I think we all know what the wrong is, which is selling a four kilowatt system or five kilowatt system and throwing a five P five kilowatt battery on like that's obviously, you know, those, those reps are, you know, a rude awakening. We're coming after you. it's It's crazy that that's a thing. So yeah, it's not a perfect science. And then, yeah, just setting the expectation and understanding. then here's another thing I wanted to talk about that kind of addresses this a little bit.
Post-Installation Optimization
00:36:05
Speaker
So another challenge I'm seeing is installers don't know how to configure battery settings or they they just, that's not a part of their job to do that with the customer and the app. And a lot of sales reps assume that the installers just know those things. Because again, three years ago, again, it's been three whole freaking years, you would just sell the system, it would hit PTO and it would just start working. There was nothing you had to do.
00:36:28
Speaker
And so even with my own team, I had to call the you know, yesterday with one of my reps and we were with the customer and, you know, of course they didn't see the email from Tesla because like a lot of people, they get thousands of emails spamming them and they just ignored it. They didn't see it or whatever, right? So we had to help the customer download the app, log in and Tesla has crazy security. Like i was literally on the phone with Tesla the other day and they were like, oh, we need to verify who's in the title of the house and then transfer ownership before we can speak about any of the matters of the system. Like it's kind of, crazy. If you've ever talked to Tesla, which I have of several times, and they're just, their security is next level. So it's kind of a pain. And so if it's pain the butt and the sales reps already been paid, you know, a month ago, two months ago, whatever, they're just like onto the next. So, and they don't take the time. And I'm like, no, this is the most important thing. Like I've seen this where the batteries settings just default to whatever. Like I don't, don't it's even the installers doing anything or if it's just the software just defaults on its own, it's got a mind of its own, but it will screw your customer over if you don't understand how the batteries settings work, like bad. Like I've seen on my own jobs where I go out, because I do this on all my customers, after their system is installed the battery is commissioned, ask the installer, hey, is the system operational? They say, yes, cool. I contact the homeowner, I go to their house.
00:37:47
Speaker
I sit down with them, I download the app, I show them how to pair it to their phone to the ah battery, I walk them through the settings and why I'm setting the settings the way that I'm setting them. I show them, and like I've had ones where it defaults to 50% backup reserve and then only 50% for self-consumption. Which again, to somebody who doesn't understand what I'm talking about, you know get educated if you're selling this product because you're literally hurting customers unintentionally probably, right? Because you think, oh, somebody else handles that. They don't, they probably don't, right? Maybe Legacy does, but maybe not. Most companies I've heard don't do that. Do do you know?
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, they don't do that. No company does that. And didn't even know that, yeah? I didn't know that, that I feel like I know a decent amount and my customers are hit me up on like, oh, wait, the installer the installers, they didn't set that up for you.
00:38:37
Speaker
So even I was like surprised. to go back No, and they don't. They don't know. And they have no idea. And the installers don't know. The installers don't understand what net billing tariff is. They just know how to install the system. They're electricians. Like they're smart at what they do. but they have they don't know the tech. They don't know, and so and the salespeople oftentimes, they don't know either. So what you have to do, like for instance, that that example, 50% was being kept for backup reserve. What does that mean? That means every single day, the customer is only able to tap into 50% of the battery for usable capacity. So what's gonna happen is, at nighttime, once they're all running off the battery, the battery's gonna go down to 50% and then it's artificially gonna stop right there and then they're gonna start pulling from the grid. They're missing out on 50% of their batteries consumption possibility.
00:39:24
Speaker
So they're gonna have true upbills. you know And I have reps, the ones that stuck around like, man, I have no idea why And I'm like, did you configure the battery settings? What that? I've never, what are you talking about? I have to configure the battery settings? I thought somebody else did that. Nobody knows how to do it. I'm telling you right now, zero people in the industry, unfortunately, know how to do this.
00:39:43
Speaker
It's a massive, massive problem. So um yeah I've done a little bit of training on it. I'm i'm actually going to create like a homeowner facing video that I can just share where like anytime they have a question, I'm just like,
00:39:56
Speaker
send them the video and then they can watch probably 10, 15 minute video on exactly how to control it. Because either what I've experienced is most homeowners, either one, were never set up with the app to begin with, which is the most common, right? The salesperson, the company never set it up or they sent them off one email that got lost and it said, here, set up your battery settings here and they just never did it. That's the most common.
00:40:20
Speaker
The second most common is that they got into the app, right? Maybe they followed the instructions, they downloaded it, they got access, they were do-it-yourselfers, they figured it out, maybe they watched a video or two, and then they set it and forget it.
00:40:34
Speaker
And then they never looked at the app ever again. And the moment something starts happening, and they're not getting the results that they were expecting, who do they call? the sales rep usually, or the company, right? They're gonna reach out, oh, this is not working, solar is a scam, brah, brah, brah.
00:40:51
Speaker
I've heard that a million times. And I always go, oh, really, interesting, let's take a look, let's see why this isn't working. And I've even found times where we configured the battery settings properly, i don't know what happened if, if I don't know, there was a software update on Tesla's side, or Enphase, or one of these companies, or what happened, but something reset it to the default configuration, and now the battery's backup reserve's at 20%. So what do I set my house at?
00:41:16
Speaker
I set my house at 0%. You could set it like 5% maybe backup reserve, but 0 to 5%, we'll say. That's gonna maximize the savings. Because if the battery's not just sitting there to do nothing, like it has a purpose. And that's what's called self-consumption, where once that sun goes down, it starts consuming battery power. If you keep any power for backup reserve, you're missing out, that's money, literally sitting there and electrons in your batteries, not doing anything for you. So we just need to think a little bit deeper about these things. And then we need to have it built into our process. After we close the customer, we install a customer, we all have like our steps for closing, setting appointments, maybe doing a follow-up, asking for referrals.
00:41:57
Speaker
We have an appointment and this is a great time to ask for referrals. i always do that at the same time. When you set up a customer's battery configuration for them and you educate them on exactly how to take control of their power in their house and and and read through it and and and take it does take time. It's 30 minutes to an hour maybe with the customer. You can use that perfect time to, hey, by the way, if you know anybody that would benefit from this or hey, you know, right? And you can shift to that very, very easy. So that's what I train on. um You have to set up battery configuration because if if you have a battery that's maybe um closer to that one to two ratio, like you said, maybe it's a four, five, six kilowatt system and you put one Tesla on there, you want to make sure you're maximizing that one Tesla. If you don't even do this and they're only, you know, their backup reserve is set to 20%, 40%, 50% and you're only getting half of that battery juice, I mean, you're you're going to hurt the customer and you're going to not get referrals. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, no, one I love that. I remember the first time this happened to me, i was like, I was frustrated because I was going to other appointments. I'm like, man, the installers didn't do their job. They're supposed to set this up for the customer. And he's like asking me if the battery is even on.
00:43:05
Speaker
And I don't even don't even know because I didn't know that much about batteries. I'm like, I don't know. Is the Tesla light like showing on it? It should be on. And then finally, he kept bugging me. So I'm like, you know, I'm just going to go to his house and yeah, help me figure it out.
00:43:19
Speaker
And then, um you know, easy to with chat, chi you chat GPT and all that, just plug it in and help me figure out a bunch of stuff. But then, ah yeah, like you're saying, i actually got a referral from that too, because I went back, followed up on referrals. And then he saw that I was taking the time to, you know, like make sure everything was set up correctly.
00:43:37
Speaker
And um yeah, for I was complaining about it, because I'm doing something the installer should have done. But it ended up actually being a good thing for me and for the customer. And I got a referral out of it. So i'm like, okay, well, maybe this isn't such a bad idea to actually go back and make sure they're set up correctly and then yeah probably get a referral out of it.
Customer Engagement
00:43:56
Speaker
it' Exactly. honest It's a reframe from the sales side because salespeople, like my guy the other day texted me, he's like, man, he's like, you guys are going to have to start withholding my pay until I do these battery settings. Otherwise, I'm not going to want to do it. Yeah. I laughed, i was like, that's funny. I was like, yeah, that's one way to look at it. But yeah, if you look at it from a like, you're actually the expert, there is no better time, I'm gonna make this real clear, there is no better time than to frame yourself as an expert than whenever you can show them how to configure their battery settings.
00:44:27
Speaker
They might have saw you as an expert before, but now they're like, okay, this guy, the installers didn't even do this for me. Like they just slapped it on my house and they were gone. Like Taylor is the man. And I'm telling you guys, that's where referrals come.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Love that. um So one last thing about batteries, Jonathan. and I know we weren't necessarily planning to talk about batteries the whole time, but yeah, it's been some good stuff, man. So I'm learning a lot. um But so what's your thoughts on, because here we have in California, you have the shift batteries where it's not backing them up. It's just, you know, doing like the...
00:45:02
Speaker
and you know, kicking in the arbitrage or whatever. So what's your thoughts on that? do you recommend um shift batteries for certain people, maybe for like lower usage situation situations or what do you think about shift batteries?
00:45:15
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't sold one in probably almost two years, maybe a year and a half. um And that's mostly because of the Powerwall 3. It made the value proposition you know so competitive. like We can sell people crazy price points for these fully backed up houses off of just one battery. um As we're kind of shifting back to end phase of some of these new products coming out,
00:45:39
Speaker
i'm I'm reminded of all the limitations that the rest of the industry has, which is for instance, on like one end phase 10 kilowatt battery, you generally can't back up an entire house. Like it's not. so I'm kind of going back to partial backup a little bit in certain cases.
00:45:54
Speaker
um i i usually tried. I've been selling partial backup since 2020. pretty consistently. So I was ahead of the curve on that. Even at Vivint and Sunrun, I was selling the batteries and everybody was like why are you selling those? Like, we don't make any more money. It doesn't help the customer save any more money, which it didn't. It was purely for backup purposes back in that time. But I just believed in that idea that people want to have off grid. So like one quick story on that front, I had this lady that I installed in 2020 in Loma Linda, um little Filipino lady. She's real sweet. She calls me one day and she's like, Jonathan, I think there's something wrong with my solar. And I'm like, really? Like, well, what's wrong? What's happening? And she's like, I only have electricity to half of my house right now. I said, oh, there must be an active power outage because we remember we got you a battery with partial home backup and and all that. and she's like, oh, let let me call you back. So she calls me back, you know, whatever, an hour later. And she goes, yeah, i just called a few of my neighbors and nobody has electricity on my street.
00:46:56
Speaker
She goes, how do I get the rest of the house backed up? you know and i'm like That's gonna cost a little more. How about we just hold off for now, right? And and we didn't end up doing it We just kept her house and it was like all of her emergency things backed up. But that was from 2020 when I you know set her up. So, you know yeah, is it a little bit of extra cost? Yeah, it is.
00:47:16
Speaker
But I think that if you're a decent salesperson worth your salt, you can justify that little extra cost to do it. Now, if they're just if you educate them and they're like, no, I just really just care about savings. That's all that matters to me.
00:47:28
Speaker
I'm not opposed to it. Like I would, I've sold some shift batteries where it made sense, but, i would say I haven't sold shift for, yeah, almost close to two years probably. Yeah. We haven't sold a ton of them either, but like you said, we're seeing a little bit, you know, with more phase batteries that,
00:47:44
Speaker
Sometimes with lower usage situations where they are more savings focused, sometimes, you know, it can make sense. It's not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah. And then I just thought of ah another thing. So with the green button data, are you pulling those? Because here in San Diego, for example, I have a lot of customers who...
00:48:02
Speaker
They're using tiny systems like three kilowatt systems where, you know, a three kilowatt system and a Tesla Powerwall, that's already like a pretty big offset for them.
00:48:13
Speaker
And so and in those situations, is it still important to pull green button data or like what are are what order are times when you look at that
Green Button Data Usage
00:48:22
Speaker
data? Yeah. The more complicated or larger systems do require the green button data more so. um Like, because honestly, on certain just kind of cookie cutter houses, you know, 10,000 kilowatt hours of usage, no pool, no electric cars, just one air conditioner, you know, 2000 square foot house, normal, just everything looks normal on the kind of outset.
00:48:45
Speaker
I generally don't pull green and button data on those. um To your point, it is more important when you have like an EV complicates things because when they charge the EV can really make a difference in how you design the system um and and just larger usage in general or like really big variances like you mentioned between like their base load and their peak usage times like from AC standpoint. So there can be a few different things that would trigger me to be like, I want to do it. I generally use it more as like a sales strategy than necessarily always for technical reasons. If they are being educated and they're like, well, wait a second. Yeah. And the other guys that came by and knocked on my door, never mentioned green button data. What is this for the right client? That's going to actually establish more trust and credibility. It's somewhat of a sales strategy, but from an actual like solar and battery design standpoint, yes, it is more it is more beneficial on a larger, more complex house. On a smaller house with a very simple usage profile, you probably don't even need green button data. Okay, that's good to know. And then speaking of sales, so I know we talked about it's like the solar braille companies, they try to keep it simple as possible and leave out things. And so as we've learned today, it's important that the customer is, you know, at least a little educated on these things and that we're the expert.
00:50:04
Speaker
And so in your sales and in your training, Jonathan, i don't know if you have any strategies for like, you know, keeping it simple because depending on the person, it's like, I've seen where people feel like, oh, there's so much information. i need to like sit down, digest all this. And that can cause like some para paralysis by analysis, stuff like that.
00:50:24
Speaker
And so how do you do you have any ways to like you know yeah make sure people are getting the right thing, but keep it simple at the same time so you're not getting like too deep into the we into the weeds? Because some people, it's just like, well, these things go over their head too. So how do you keep it simple? Yeah.
Simple Sales Rules
00:50:37
Speaker
yeah I've kind of, I'll just kind of give ah a short version. I've already sprinkled that information through this podcast, but, um, again, eight to 12 panels per Tesla battery is really easy for a customer to understand. Right. So if they have quotes or multiple quotes and they've got ones that say, you know, 18 panels, 22 panels and one Tesla battery,
00:50:58
Speaker
Well, Mr. Homeowner, I can tell you right now that there's a good chance, not even a good chance, there's a certain chance that you're still gonna be pulling 30 to 40% of your power from the utility grid because that battery is not gonna be enough for that ratio of panels, right? So that would be like a simple little strategy is you know just knowing what those are. For like for instance, for the N phase batteries, um it's a little bit, since it's a smaller capacity, 10 kilowatts, I say six every six to 10 panels um per battery, right? So those are just kind of general rules of thumb. Another general rule of thumb that I'll use, because sometimes panels doesn't work because sun hours can vary, right? The panels might have some shade or be a north facing or not optimal producing. So another easy rule of thumb for salespeople that I train on
00:51:45
Speaker
is for every 7,000 kilowatt hours of annual production, add one Tesla battery. That's a pretty decent ratio. It'll usually get you close to that one to three mark that I mentioned. And then again, for the end phase, about one for every 6,000 kilowatt hours of annual production. those are usually pretty good rules of thumb, right? When you're in house. And then again, the ah the reason it is most important, because as a salesperson, you have to know like, why do I need to know these things, right? Because a lot of people, I think a lot of salespeople, if their brain has this part where it just filters out all the unnecessary stuff, because as salespeople, we need to communicate to people who are doing the same thing, right? They're just throwing out, okay, this guy's rambling, blah, blah, blah. Like what's the important things I need to know, right? So from a sales perspective, what the main thing you need to know is how to position yourself against competitors because we're in a very competitive market here in California. And those those two strategies I just gave you on how to size batteries could and will be the difference between you winning business over somebody else who didn't give them these rules of thumb.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's so true. See if they have any other quote or anything, um you tell them that and you see a surprise look on their face like they didn't know that, then you know you're on the right path because it's it's like, okay, sweet. The other guy probably wasn't an expert in batteries. He was just throwing out numbers and didn't go over any of this.
00:53:10
Speaker
And then going to be super easy to position yourself at that point. so Yeah. Yeah, so that's why that's why you should do it, right? you know For no other reason, even if you don't really want to nerd out about batteries, you don't have to, because I have a lot of people on my team that knock and do different, sit you know and they're talking to clients who wouldn't even want to listen or understand or would just go right over their heads, so you don't need to give them a PhD in batteries. But if you just give them super simple rules of thumb, hey, Mr. Homeowner, what I like to do is every eight to 12 panels per battery, I found that's an optimal ratio. So if you have people offering you, you know, 16, 18, 20 panels and just one battery, I can tell you right now, you're still gonna be pulling from the utility 30 to 40% of the time, right? Just that's like ah ah a line and it's not just a line, I've seen it in the data, right? So I have conviction on that because I've seen it, but if you haven't seen the data yet and you're newer and you're just trying to figure out like, well, how do I understand this?
00:54:05
Speaker
Trust an expert, right? Trust somebody who's doing it. Use green button data, like learn about it, do some training, right? i would also suggest like, you know, if you're going to make five grand or 10 grand or whatever you're going to make it, you owe it to the customer and to yourself for future business. to be sizing clients with the right expectations and and the right education. So that way you can get referrals, you know? So anyways.
00:54:29
Speaker
So good, man.
Managing Expectations
00:54:30
Speaker
You know, I was just thinking, I'm like, well, if they haven't looked at solar before, they don't have other quotes, whatever. i was thinking, is is is it really necessary to explain this as much to that point? It's like, if you give them the information, have you at least touched on it?
00:54:44
Speaker
Then that way, if someone does come to the house or whatever, like you've already brought it up and then you're not going to be the guy that's not looking like the expert or you left out stuff to the customer. You're kind of setting up. Whether they've looked into it all. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say that. That's why on every sale, I'll say, hey, when you talk, because like, let's say I talk to somebody they're like oh we're going to talk to a couple more people before we make a decision. Right. And that happens. You know, even if you do all the closing objection handling strategies and they're still like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're still gonna, or maybe you get them to sign on that spot on the day, but then they're like, yeah, but we're still just gonna double check, just so you know, we're gonna double check a few more people. That's why I always say, like during the the closing process, I say, hey, when you talk to other salespeople in the industry, listen to what they say. If they start saying, oh, you need this many panels, you need this, but they don't really educate you like I did on the batteries, that's a red flag. right I'm setting the the frame for them to now know what red flags to look out for. So now when they talk to that rep who's not very educated on this, who has an old strategy, they're not gonna be able to compete with that. I just set a landmine, they just stepped on it, blew off their leg, and now they're gonna lose the sale. and i don't
00:55:51
Speaker
you know So I'm not worried, I have a pretty high stick rate. It's you know probably about 85% or so right now, you know which is a pretty sticky close. And it's partially, I believe it's because I set landmines in my clothes for other reps to trip on. The battery is the big one. It's a big one.
00:56:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's so good. Yeah, for us, it's, you know, with like the permit poachers coming around, you know, that's something we're always trying to do is set that up. Hey, if anyone comes to the house, it's probably because they saw that we pulled a permit on it and just know that a lot of times they're using shady tactics and leaving out information. And then how they get in their head that, okay, anyone coming to the house after he came, they're probably permit poachers and and doing some... I'll do that too. Yeah, I don't get that issue very often because I do the same. I plant some of those and I go, hey, like just so you know, if anyone contacts you from any other company or other provider and you're not sure if it's from my from me or my company,
00:56:53
Speaker
reach out to me to verify that it's legitimate source. Because I've had people come by, say they're the utility or they work with this person or that person and and um and put my customers into some bad situations. So if you have any doubt, always reach out to me. My my phone lines are always open to you.
00:57:12
Speaker
So important. Well, brother, it's been a so good jamming on this. I can't believe we're already at almost an hour here. Time flies in. um they Again, wasn't necessarily the plan to go deep dive on batteries, but it's been so... Here we are. um So yeah, man. But as we wrap up here, people want to reach out to you more, learn more about batteries, stuff like that. What's the best way to... want to drop your social media or best way to get in touch with you? Maybe details about your podcast too.
00:57:40
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think this is a battery, almost like a battery, mini battery training that we did today. So hopefully everyone got some value. If you're in a market, I just want to say if you're in a market that doesn't sell batteries yet, it's coming. So, you know, definitely keep a lookout on my YouTube channel. So my YouTube channel is Go Green Energy Freedom.
00:58:02
Speaker
Uh, so again, go green energy freedom. That's where my podcast is go green podcast. And I also put out regular trainings and content, uh, to help. And, uh, Jonathan Charles Wilson on all the social medias, my full name. Um, you can find me if you want to reach out directly there, but yeah, hopefully we, uh, added some value to to the listeners today.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, this is so good, man. Thank you again for coming on. And um last question here, you asked me this similar question too, but I know you're big on ah always up leveling yourself, learning and a big avid reader and all that. So what's maybe some ah books that you're recommending right now to your team or some ah recent recent books that have ah helped you out in sales and influenced you?
00:58:44
Speaker
that you'd recommend? Yeah, thank you. I'm a huge reader. um I am rereading for the third time, no matter what, with Michael O'Donnell. I just had him on my podcast. He gave an amazing interview. Go check that out. Such a good book. I would say it's the Bible to seven figures in solar for sure. it's So good. And then one other one that I just started. Have you ever heard of Rich Dad, Poor Dad?
00:59:07
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Classic. Yeah. Robert Kiyosaki, most people don't know who the rich dad is, but the rich dad is a guy named Keith Cunningham, but he he stays anonymous mostly unless you kind of dig. I saw him at a Tony Robbins event in 2015 and i just started this book, The Road Less Stupid. um It's fitting because i constantly am asking myself, why are people so stupid? So I learned some of those answers in here, not to be stupid.
00:59:39
Speaker
Good stuff, bro. Cool. Well, we will link to those and have people would check those out. and I'm going go check them out myself. And, but yeah, brother, thank you so much for coming on. We'll have to do this again. Cause man, we only talked about batteries today and I know there's so much more we talk about. So yeah, have on sooner than two years, but keep crushing, man. And I appreciate you for all you do for the industry.
01:00:00
Speaker
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