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Too Many Sales Reps Make This Mistake On The Doors
2 Playsin 6 minutes
In this episode, we discuss the literal dealbreaker between a good presentation and a close that many fail to prevent. This little nuance in the middle of a presentation and the deal can cause you to lose your rapport with the perfect homeowners in plain sight.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
From $50 to 150 Deals: Taylor's Journey
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong and I 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.
Avoiding Mistakes in the Solar Business
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, following up like a pro and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solar printer you might ask?
Defining a Solarpreneur
00:00:33
Speaker
A solar printer 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. Hey, what's going
Common Appointment Setter Mistakes
00:00:42
Speaker
on, solar printers? Today, we're going to talk about one of the biggest mistakes that new setters make when they are knocking doors and setting up appointments. And I've actually seen experienced people make this too. So maybe you're making it as well. um We're going to talk about that and a whole lot more. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals. and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry. Hope you're closing lots of deals. Hope you are shaking the rust off. Whenever you're listening to this, we are recording this in January. Winter months still gets dark early and I've noticed that sometimes it's hard for guys to shake that Christmas rust off. So whatever you're doing, hope you can start to push harder and get into our rhythm.
Invitation to Solar Con and Listener Engagement
00:01:29
Speaker
And before we get into the content of this episode, wanted to make two invitations. Number one, if you haven't gotten your ticket to solar con already, what are you waiting for? Go click the link below in the show notes. We have the exclusive solar printer discount that you can still take advantage of. It goes down by the week. So make sure you get and you grab your ticket now to get the biggest discount.
00:01:55
Speaker
And we're going to be rolling out some exclusive solar printer bonuses for anyone that takes advantage of that. Number two, if you have not left us a of review and you've been a listener of the podcast for more than a few episodes, please go leave us a review on iTunes. Been a minute, would love to feature some reviews and love to give some people a shout out. So please go leave us a review if you haven't already.
00:02:19
Speaker
So let's get into the content and that is a big mistake that I see new setters make and I was reminded of this actually.
Importance of Smooth Sales Transitions
00:02:27
Speaker
as I was reading this new book by Sam Taggart. It's called Eat What You Kill. Picked me up a copy of this at door to door con recently. And he actually has a chapter on this mistake. It's called The Transition. Hey, and so I'm going to read a few paragraphs of his explanation of it in the book. And we'll see. You might be making this mistake yourself. So we'll see.
00:02:54
Speaker
Okay, so transition, he's referring to when you are at the door or you can could also be on the phone, but when you are doing your presentation, your initial presentation, right? And he has a step so you can go pick up the copy of the book if you want to go through all of them. But the first one, um the intro, second is the what.
00:03:17
Speaker
third is the Y, uh, fourth step is the pullback. And then step number five is the transition. And this is where I see so many people make mistakes. And, uh, Sam goes, goes over this in his book. Okay. So just to enjoy this a little bit, he says the transition is how you shift from your initial pitch into the next phase of your cell, whatever that requires. It might mean getting inside the prospect's home or office to present the details of your program.
00:03:42
Speaker
Or it might mean doing a demo of features and benefits, or it might mean scheduling an appointment on the phone for an in-person presentation. Wherever, wherever needs to happen after that opening pitch will require a transition. The challenge is that you don't want the prospect to feel like you just made a sharp left turn from the friendly chat.
00:04:01
Speaker
you've been having so far. You want it to feel smooth and natural, not threatening or anxiety provoking. The most common mistake at the transition is pausing at the worst possible moments. You might have done a great job without with the pitch elements we've been talking about, the hook, the introduction, the YA, the bandwagoning, and so on. You might have established your poor trust and curiosity, but if you pause at the transition as if seeking permission to keep going, all that progress can go off the rails. So there's just a few paragraphs.
00:04:30
Speaker
This is something that I discovered pretty quickly that this was a mistake that I personally was making. But then I've seen so many new setters over the year make this mistake. In case you didn't catch that, Sam says the most common mistake at the transition is pausing at the worst possible moments. So what I see over and over again, guys will go through their presentation. They'll know a great pitch presentation at the door, right, as they need to go into that crucial moment of actually booking the
Learning from Mistakes: Avoiding Pauses
00:04:59
Speaker
appointment.
00:04:59
Speaker
They'll just pause. They'll leave it right there. When I started, I would do this myself. Like I would, I felt like I had the pitch memorized perfectly. I was engaging people out the doors to seem like they're interested, but then I would just leave them hanging and they'd say,
00:05:17
Speaker
Sounds good. Uh, not interested or leave me a card or y'all look into this. Uh, you can reach back out to us in the future, different types of responses, but no one would ever just be like, okay, how do I sign up for it? Or at least very rarely, maybe one at a hundred. And so that's when I realized I needed to not pause. I needed to nail the transition.
00:05:40
Speaker
And I need to go directly into the next steps. So hopefully if you're making this mistake, you can correct it. I had to go through a long time before I got it corrected. But what I want to do, I'm going to play for you some examples, maybe some not so solid transitions. I'll do two examples here, play for you. And if you're watching on the video version, we'll try it. We'll try to include these video clips in there so you can go look us up on YouTube um if you want to get a little more ah interactive information. For this first one, this is from a live solar appointment setting roleplay from Andy Elliott. Got a lot of Andy Elliott. Guy's got energy. um And so he brings someone up to the room. He has them go through their presentation. And so let's first hear how this guy does doing his presentation and see if you can recognize anything.
00:06:28
Speaker
with some of your neighbors from the lead over doing the neighborhood today. Essentially, so some of the neighbors close down here, their floor power bills have been going up a lot. They've gone from like 13 cents to 17 cents from last summer. So how I'm helping them is if they do qualify, we're going to take that electric bill from up here that keeps going up. We're going to lock them in a lower fixed rate bill. Five, 10 years down the line, they're going to be paying less than they did today. Essentially, it's kind of hard to qualify. So I'm going to read it going in a second.
00:06:54
Speaker
we're gonna be dropping up reports later in week And just seeing if this works out for your own. Okay, I'm go asking one question. I'm so nervous up here. I'm just so nervous. Cool, Bob. Just ask your question. Okay. So it's pretty quick little presentation and the guy is obviously nervous up there. Shout out to whoever this guy is. I mean, he's in front of a room full of people at one of Andy Elliott's seminars there. Um, but you notice at the end and it's tough to say cause he kind of gets cut off by Andy Elliott. So maybe he wasn't going to pause right there, but from what it sounds like he ends his presentation right there. Okay. You can hear what he says. We're dropping our reports later in the week.
00:07:31
Speaker
and but seeing if this works out your okay i'm go see So it it appears to me that that's where he ends his presentation is we're going to be dropping the reports off and we'll come back later in the week. Hey, I can't tell you how many times I've seen that from newer setters, newer appointment setters, sometimes experienced reps is where they end with something like that. It's a decent presentation and that's it.
00:07:54
Speaker
So what this guy should have done again, you know, maybe would have gone a little bit more. He sort of got cut off, but he should have gone into a qualifying
The Art of Qualifying Questions
00:08:03
Speaker
question. Right. So we'll come back when it's ready. yeah Afternoon's evenings work. So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
00:08:13
Speaker
And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout. But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market. 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.
00:08:42
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 Solar Scout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show. You need to get my listeners a great deal. And they did. So go to Solar Scout dot app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10 percent off your first month when you sign up. That's Solar Scout dot app forward slash Taylor. OK, back to the show.
00:09:13
Speaker
ah Do you guys pay um you pay over 200 or less than 200? Some type of qualifying question, some type of question that takes you to the next step that transitions. right So for me, a lot of times I like to just go into figuring out a time that will work for him.
00:09:33
Speaker
It seems to work pretty well for me. And matter of fact, I will play one of my presentations here next, but whatever you're going to do, just make sure you do not pause. Make sure you don't leave them hanging right there. And I love what Sam says in the next, if you have his book, go pick up a copy. But, uh, in the next couple of paragraphs,
00:09:55
Speaker
He says, ah if in the real world, your prospect has no interest in validating you. Instead, they're still evalu evaluating you. So if you pause for their approval, you might as well be wearing a sign that reads, I lack self-confidence. And then the prospect will subconsciously start to lose confidence in you. Your positive momentum can vanish in just a few seconds. So, super well said. How many people just lack the confidence and they pause right there.
00:10:23
Speaker
expecting that they might get some approval, or whatever they had, they get shut down. So that's the lesson. Hey, so I'm going to play a few, a little clip of what seemed to work pretty well for me.
00:10:34
Speaker
Um, I know there's lots of people killing it out there. There's lots of great examples you can find, but, uh, that's just something that I read in the book and just reminded me, so many people do this the wrong way. So many people struggle. So if I can find, let's see.
00:10:55
Speaker
Okay. So here's a little clip of one of my presentations. ah like I work in a space adjacent to the utilities. I'm curious like if you have, is there like a flyer or something I can look up more information to read about what the program is?
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll leave you this, this is a card. And then, like I said, we'll come back, they'll have the whole custom brochure and everything with all the details. Because right now, they bit every home is custom just because they're using different amounts of power. But when we come back, they have like a full savings report and everything that shows differences and all that. Yeah, this is what I'll leave with you today. And it just explains a little bit about what they're preparing, what we'll have for you the next time.
00:11:36
Speaker
And then, yeah, we'll come back when obviously obviously you're not in the middle of work and all that. Okay. Yeah, when we're on the next time. um So I'll leave a copy with you. Do you know if you're going to be here tomorrow, like weekends? ah Yeah. I mean, my husband and I both work out of the home. So we're here during the week a lot. The weekends, we're in and out. So I don't know. Okay. That's nice. You got gotta to work work together all the time. You don't get sick of them? No. Okay. My wife, she kicks me out because she...
00:12:07
Speaker
My mom worked for Mom, too, and she, by the time Saturday rolls around, she's like, I gotta get out of here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay, well, yeah, we'll figure out the time that both of you are here. They just have me fill this out, leave you guys the copy, just because they're gonna prepare the info and make sure it's accurate for the home. Okay. So I'll fill it out, leave you a copy, and then we'll figure out when both of you guys have a minute. That'd be okay if I borrow a corner of the table, just to write on with you super quick. Why don't I bring the pen out?
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay. I got a, I do have a pen here. Okay. Sorry, we can use this table. too Yeah. Does that work? Okay. So boom, there you heard it. Um, you know, made some mental error. I think I repeated myself a few times. So wasn't the world's most perfect thing, but you get the idea, right? You don't pause, you don't leave hanging. Um, you go on day, what time?
00:13:04
Speaker
Are you guys usually your afternoon's evenings? You guys are on the weekend, right? And then go straight into getting the information you need, which in my case, I carry around the the appointment card. I fill it out with the homeowner, pen and paper gives me a good reason to borrow a table, sit down with them.
00:13:20
Speaker
and ah just makes it way smoother. So I hope that gave you some ideas. If you're a manager, listen to this, train your reps on this. How many newer reps are pausing in the transition, just leaving things hanging.
Improving Through Self-Recording
00:13:33
Speaker
If you are a newer rep rep or maybe you're an experienced rep, maybe you see yourself doing this, record yourself. If you're not recording yourself, you might not have any idea ah the pauses you're making or what you're saying. okay Even me listening back to my presentation just barely,
00:13:49
Speaker
I'm like, well, I've repeated myself a couple of times. I could have done this better. Like I see things about my own presentation that I can improve all the time. So record yourself, look for those pauses, look to have better transitions that will help you so much in your appointment setting, ability, and i even your closing in every aspect. If you master the transition.
00:14:13
Speaker
Hope that helps. Can't wait to bring some more content to you. Remember, go grab your solar con tickets. Go leave us a review if you have not already and we'll see you on the next episode.
00:14:25
Speaker
Hey, solar printers, quick question. 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 Soulciety for Solar Professionals
00:14:37
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. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry, and it's called a Soulciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give SolarPro's 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. Currently, Soulciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Soulciety.co to learn more and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for Soulprenuer listeners, so be sure to go to Soulciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.