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How to Negotiate Like a Pro
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We take a lot of things at face value, and that leaves a lot of stones unturned for better deals and incentives. This episode unlocks the opportunity to negotiate on the things we use on the daily, especially those that run our solar careers.
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Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Journey and Sales Failures
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. 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.
Common Mistakes for Solopreneurs
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? 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.
Negotiation Importance and Strategies
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's going on, solopreneurs? We are back with another episode. We're going talking about things you can negotiate to help your finances. If you're like me, I didn't know a lot of things can be negotiated and there's a lot of money-saving tips out there.
00:00:56
Speaker
So if you like saving you money, if you like maximizing your income, this episode is for you. and ah We are here, as always, to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:11
Speaker
But when you make your money in solar, you need to know how to keep it, you need to know how to maximize it, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. so Welcome to the show. If you have not already, please go leave us review on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen the show. That is all we ask in you coming over to listen today. The idea for this podcast, I've been reading a book or listening rather to a book on a Spotify, actually. That's a little
Credit Card Negotiations and Benefits
00:01:38
Speaker
hack right there. If you didn't know Spotify has books, you do not have to go pay Audible for for books because Spotify has pretty much all of them. But this book, it's called I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
00:01:49
Speaker
It's by, think I'm saying the guy's name, it Ramit Sethi, Indian guy. He's also on Netflix. He's the host of that Netflix show, How To Get Rich. But this book was introduced to me by a friend of mine, John Soriano. We've had him on the podcast. He is i'm one of our leaders at the company, our VP of sales actually. And he was telling me about a hack he found, which ah he he has the credit card. Some of you might know this. There's the credit cards that get you all like the flight benefits, the lounges. It's like an Amex Platinum.
00:02:23
Speaker
um There's a few other ones like Chase Sapphire Reserve, things like that. And he was telling me um about some of the benefits with it. and But I'm like, man, I just don't know if I would use that enough to really get the full benefits because it's like $700 year you pay to have the benefits. And unless you're traveling a lot, really maximizing it, i don't know if it's worth it.
00:02:44
Speaker
So he told me, you can do you can do this and you can actually get the fee waived. just by negotiating it. And he's like, these credit card companies, they want you to be their customer because they make money on all these transactions.
00:02:58
Speaker
So it makes sense. If you know how to play your cards, then yeah, you can get them to actually waive these fees, you know get the benefits for free essentially. And I haven't pulled the trigger on that yet, but it got me thinking, how many how many ah things are there out there that we can negotiate, that we can get better deals on,
00:03:18
Speaker
and that we can be maximizing our cash, maximizing our solar money that we
Smart Financial Strategies vs. Being Cheap
00:03:23
Speaker
didn't know about. And he he introduced me to that book. um So we'll link it You can check it out.
00:03:29
Speaker
Has a bunch of tips on you know things you negotiate, get better deals on. But I'm going to go through a few things that I was able to negotiate down myself and that I feel like would be really useful for our audience.
00:03:43
Speaker
Okay, so we're going to go through a few things here. Some of them maybe you knew, some you didn't know. Would love to hear your suggestions, your comments. If there are other things you guys have negotiated, we all love money hacks. We all love ways to maximize our profits, our income. And with this, I mean, it's not to be as cheap as possible, right?
00:04:00
Speaker
I think there's a difference between negotiating being cheap. So don't be that guy that's just like cheap with everything. I'm from Utah and people from Utah, they're notorious for like being extremely cheap. You know, I've got buddies out there that's like, they'll send you Venmo requests money.
00:04:16
Speaker
you know, some ridiculous things. It's like, don't be the guy who you buy someone a drink at the gas station for a dollar and then you send them a Venmo request for a dollar. It's like, come on, man. Okay. So let's not be cheap, but let's learn how to negotiate things. And different cultures you've seen, yeah you know, ironic that it's Indian guy that they wrote wrote this book because you see in cultures, some of these people, they negotiate everything. Okay. You go to Mexico. Some of my Mexican friends, they just, you negotiate everything.
00:04:44
Speaker
And, you know, I make fun of them, but it's like at the same time, there's things I'm like, well, I didn't know you could actually ask for a better deal on that. It surprised me. Okay. So, um, don't be afraid to ask for what you think you deserve, right? Don't be cheap, but but don't be afraid to ask for you know, some negotiation, better deal. Okay. So here's some things that maybe you knew, maybe you didn't. First of all, did you know that a lot of your subscriptions, they can be negotiated and most subscriptions that you have, you know, the yearly, I don't know about ne Netflix and things like that, but most subscriptions, if you pay a yearly amount, it's going to save you a lot of money. Okay. And that one,
00:05:25
Speaker
Hopefully quite a few people knew because most of the time when you sign up for something that's a monthly subscription, a lot of times they have a yearly option that saves you maybe 10, 20%. Okay, so there's one thing right off the bat. it' Something you can do today. Go to all your monthly subscriptions. There's an app I use. It's called Bobby. and you can actually track all your monthly subscriptions i'm sure there's a bunch of apps like it but it's just so easy to get caught up in all these subscriptions forget what you're paying for um i know people out there that had three netflix subscriptions that double signed up for a bunch of different things they didn't even know about so that's one thing make sure you know what you actually signed up for what are your subscriptions but then once you know them can you go to a yearly subscription
00:06:06
Speaker
If you can, it's going to save you probably 10, 20, maybe even more than that. 30 plus percent negotiate some of those down to do the yearly subscription. Yes, that's one thing. And then, you know, there's quite a few things that have to do with banks. already mentioned like annual fees on credit cards. Those can be negotiated.
00:06:26
Speaker
credit line increases, we should always want to have as much, you know, it's good to have some high credit limits. Okay. It's not to say if we have $50,000 credit limit, a hundred thousand dollar credit limit, we're going to spend it all, but it gives you some good, you know, freedom.
00:06:41
Speaker
If you can increase your credit limits. Okay. Another thing is like bank fees. Okay. If you're like me, especially in the past when I wasn't making a lot of money in solar. There's so many times where I would overdraft.
00:06:53
Speaker
At first, I would just pay the fee, didn't do anything. But something I discovered, you can actually waive overdraft fees. Okay, send this to your broke, maybe setter or someone that just started in solar. Maybe they're having overdraft fees. You don't need to pay those. You can negotiate those, right? I mean, to a degree, if you're overdrafting all the time, it's probably gonna be tough.
00:07:12
Speaker
Hey, and then another thing is your cell phone bill. This was something recent that happened to us. I'm on a family plan, you know, with we've got like my parents, few of my brothers and sisters on a family plan. And that that's a hack right there. Saves you a lot of money. Okay, maybe some people make fun of you, but hey, might as well be on a family pan plan plan with a lot more people if you can get that down.
00:07:36
Speaker
But ah recently, my dad, the plan we're on, He's like, our phone bill's getting up there. He was talking to AT&T. We're with T-Mobile. And, you know, AT&T throws out that they could get us the same plans, $100, $200 cheaper a month.
00:07:51
Speaker
And so my dad, he's about to pull the trigger. But, ah you know, they had... T-Mobile had some benefits we liked and couple of things that I was like, man, it's going to be a hassle to switch.
00:08:01
Speaker
And so what I told my dad, and I think the book actually talks about this too. So I'm like, hey, why don't you just go to him before you switch? Say, hey, we got this offer ah to switch and it's going to be this much per month.
00:08:14
Speaker
um We've enjoyed, it's been good with you guys, but if it saves us that much money, then we're going to switch. He went and did that. And sure enough, The next day they got our bill down I think pretty much what AT&T was going to get us.
00:08:28
Speaker
So there's a lot of power in doing that, right? It's like go to competitors, show them. I mean, we're in sales, right? Anyone that listens to this podcast, you probably have done that. Oh, we can price match.
00:08:38
Speaker
ah We can get you this. Okay. And there's going to be people out there that work the system. And same thing. We should know how to do that for our own bills. Yes. Cell phones.
Solar Scout App and Offers
00:08:49
Speaker
It's another thing. So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:08:54
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:09:05
Speaker
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 cancelled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:09:24
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, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:09:39
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
Negotiating Living and Travel Expenses
00:09:49
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:09:52
Speaker
Okay, back to the show. Um, there's things like, you know, rent, if you're renting, you can negotiate the monthly rates. You can reduce negotiate maybe pet fees. Another big one is, uh, Airbnbs, right? This is something, if you listen to the Melissa Ramiza podcast recently, she talked about this, where if you're planning blitzes, which a lot of us in solar are, uh, you can negotiate Airbnbs. And as an Airbnb, what would you say? Superhost.
00:10:18
Speaker
Okay. That's what they call the people that been hosting for a while on Airbnb. I've been doing Airbnb for a while. People don't, it's super rare that people ask it. We've had people ask for military discounts for extended stay discounts.
00:10:31
Speaker
And it's like, I'm like, okay, sure. It's not booked. I mean, I'll give it 10, 20% discount. um And just, just majority of people don't know that they can ask discounts for things like that. They think Airbnb's pricing is set in stone. There's nothing saying that that can't be changed.
00:10:47
Speaker
yeah So just don't be coming to my Airbnb, asking for massive discounts. But any other one doesn't hurt asking, especially if it's somewhere you're going regularly. Melissa mentioned that she they blitz in Texas a lot. And, know, it's a lot of lot of similar Airbnbs they're booking.
00:11:02
Speaker
So go to the same people, they'll book them and then they'll get the discounts for, you know, being repeats repeat, repeat tenants, being repeat buyers and then also staying longer.
Medical and Car Bill Negotiation Tips
00:11:13
Speaker
So things like that.
00:11:15
Speaker
It doesn't hurt to ask. Another thing, medical bills. Did you know that you can negotiate cash pay discounts, right? Especially if you don't have insurance. if you pay cash, then you're always going to get a pretty big discount in that. ah Prescription, dental, vision care, things like that. You know, cars. i mentioned I don't know if I mentioned on the podcast, but I just got joined the Tesla Cup. club finally, was using, driving my Toyota Camry, had 220,000 miles on it, was running that thing to the ground. I'm like, hey, it's still working fine. Burned some oil, but you know, it's still going fine.
00:11:48
Speaker
But then, i you know, had a friend, a coworker, Shout out to my guy, Will Brinley. He's been on the podcast too, but he introduced me to his buddy that sells used Teslas.
00:12:00
Speaker
We did the math. He has the Teslas that come with a free supercharging. And so I'm like, you know what? With what I'm paying in gas and maintenance for my old Camry, it's probably five, 600 month. By any time you factor in gas, do a lot of driving, oil changes, had to do some little bit bigger repairs on it this year.
00:12:18
Speaker
Did the math and got a Tesla um free supercharging to use 2016 Model S. Just financed it, didn't put anything down. and I'm paying, think, $415 month.
00:12:30
Speaker
So even financing, I think the rate I got was like 7.5%. So not even a great rate. But even doing that, it's like saving him money monthly just by doing that. So hey, if you want to join the Tesla Cup, hit me up. I can intro you to the guy who hooked me up.
00:12:46
Speaker
But ah you know, just think... Logically, it's like there's so many different things, money hacks, ways we can save money, ways we can maximize our money.
Taylor's Personal Negotiation Successes
00:12:56
Speaker
And lot of us aren't doing it. So maybe it's something like that.
00:12:59
Speaker
And yeah, another one that's came up recently just, you know, everyday life. It's one of those aura rings, aura rings, think is how you say it. Those are health tracking rings, I have lost it.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just like, well, things gone. It was frustrating because i was connected to Bluetooth and it was somewhere in our room, but just could not find it anywhere. So I still don't know where it is.
00:13:21
Speaker
But after I lost it, a few weeks after I lost it, i get I see a charge on my credit card for, I think they do like a $70 yearly subscription to access all the health data, which is kind of annoying. You know, it's like already paid for the ring.
00:13:35
Speaker
It's annoying how all these companies want to do the subscription after you buy it. So I saw this charge and then call up Aura Ring. I'm like, hey, I got a charge and I don't even have access to the ring.
00:13:48
Speaker
I lost it. And they gave me a hard time. They're like, oh, we see that your data was tracked a few weeks ago. It's being used. And so, yeah, we can't we're not going to refund you that. It's being used. And um so, you know, i'm I'm like fighting them on it. I'm like, look, it makes no sense.
00:14:04
Speaker
I'm not going to pay for something. It's $70. So it wasn't a massive deal, but I'm like, $70. at seventy dollars I mean, I don't want to pay $70 for a product or service I can't even use. And I'm like, and it It was just through chat. It wasn't even on the phone. They just have like a chat feature. It came to the way I'm like, look, can you please talk to a manager? Like, I'd love to use you guys in the future, but I don't want to have the experience where um i'm being charged for something and I'm happy to recommend you guys.
00:14:33
Speaker
It's like, doesn't make sense paying for something. So please, please talk to a manager, see what you can do. If you guys want to send me another ring, then great. I'll continue using it. But if not, then it's like...
00:14:46
Speaker
not going to pay for something. And I'm not going to recommend to my friends, family, if you guys can't make this work. So, you know, maybe I threatened them little bit. wasn't like rude. and I'm just like, Hey, look, like I shouldn't be charged this.
00:15:00
Speaker
And so they went and talked to a manager, had to wait like five minutes, but got a message after five minutes that, Hey, you know what? We talked to a manager and we can see that you've been a good customer.
00:15:10
Speaker
We're going to give you three months of free service and we're going to send you a new ring. So I'm like, okay. I mean, these rings, I think they're like two or 300 bucks. So ah was it? Yeah. Just something where, you know, you ask, you give them the reasons why tell them you're a loyal customer.
00:15:25
Speaker
And you'd be surprised what you can get. And what's cool about this book um that I mentioned that at the beginning, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, is he has a lot of like scripts on exactly how you can kind of negotiate some of these things down.
00:15:37
Speaker
And we we're all in sales. So it's like we should already know how to do a lot of this stuff. But if you want to learn more, go check out the book. and you know there's just tons of things just think like how can i if if there's like if it's something someone's selling online uh you might be able negotiate you can go to places like facebook marketplace craiglist there's always some negotiations to be made don't get out of control sometimes it can just be like you know i get annoyed too i've sold stuff on like facebook marketplace some people can come out with like ridiculous offers
00:16:10
Speaker
So don't be that annoying guy who's trying to get just absolute freebies and everything. gay I've probably been that sometimes. But ah yeah, just think, how can I negotiate? How can I be smart with my money? And I know it's not directly a solar topic today, but it's about we all should be professionals with our finances. okay And it starts with being smart with your money. okay And a way you can do that is know how to negotiate things. So I hope this was something that interests you today.
00:16:39
Speaker
um Had a few, you know, personal experiences lately, as you've heard. So yeah, just kind of an interesting topic that I'd throw out. Hopefully helps
Listener Engagement and Podcast Growth
00:16:48
Speaker
somebody. Hey, and speaking of helping people, we have had some ah phenomenal guests on the lately and um love the recommendations I've gotten from a few of you on Instagram, email, Facebook. So love the suggestions for topics and guests. Please keep them coming. And I promise you we'll be back at it delivering quality contents and dropping bombs every Tuesday and Friday as much as possible. So thank you for being a listener of the show.
00:17:16
Speaker
Go crush it this week. Get some deals, grow your solar business. I love you and we'll see you on the next one. What's up, solopreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
00:17:36
Speaker
One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:17:51
Speaker
So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and i would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solapreneur.
00:18:04
Speaker
We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet. So go download it right now. It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs. We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now.
00:18:29
Speaker
And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.