Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
Speaker: A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Speaker: Hey, what's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Today, we're going to be talking about how can you find a good area when you are knocking doors for solar?
Speaker: And this is actually a listener question, so much appreciated.
Speaker: It is from our friend Darren Todd McCravey.
Speaker: So we're going to be talking about how to find a good area, how to pick and dominate in an area today on the podcast.
Speaker: Welcome to the show.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: We are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: As we are listening to this, or as I'm recording this, we are nearing the end of summer.
Speaker: I can't believe it.
Speaker: It felt like it lasted two days long.
Speaker: So just another reminder to push as hard as you can during the summer months because they are over in the blink of an eye.
Speaker: But hey, we still got a little bit left.
Speaker: And I hope whenever you are listening to this, you aren't letting your foot off the gas.
Speaker: Too many times I think people make the excuse, oh, summer's over.
Speaker: Let's take it easy.
Speaker: Let's just wait until next month to hit our numbers.
Speaker: The time is now.
Speaker: So never forget that.
Speaker: You got to take advantage of every moment we have in solar because let's be honest, things probably aren't going to be in good
Speaker: as good in solar as they are right now.
Speaker: Maybe you're listening to this two years from the time of this recording and solar commissions could be way less.
Speaker: So hope you took advantage of the moment.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And so let's jump into the topic again.
Speaker: We're going to be talking about how to pick and find a good area
Speaker: as you are knocking doors for solar.
Speaker: And we have done, I know I've touched on this topic in other episodes, probably been, I don't know, maybe a year or so since we talked about this on the podcast.
Speaker: So I'm excited to bring up a few new things that I've been doing, some new softwares, new technologies that we have that we can take advantage of to help us be even more effective on the doors.
Speaker: Okay, so I'm going to get into the nitty gritty here.
Speaker: And the first tip with this, when you are finding an area, well, first of all, if you're new, if you're just starting out in solar, you need to get in the reps and you need to figure out how to knock any type of door, right?
Speaker: I remember when I first started in pest control, something that drove our managers crazy was guys that would complain about the area.
Speaker: Oh, this area sucks.
Speaker: No one's interested here.
Speaker: Then almost every time one of our managers would go to that same area,
Speaker: close a bunch of deals, find a bunch of new customers.
Speaker: So there's going to be deals and customers everywhere you go.
Speaker: The first point here is especially if you are new, make sure you learn how to master the doors.
Speaker: If you don't know how to overcome objections well, if you don't have a presentation memorized,
Speaker: If you don't know how to have confidence on the doors, it doesn't matter how strategic you get about finding areas or how strategic you are about knocking doors.
Speaker: You need to put the reps in and you need to master those other aspects of knocking the door.
Speaker: Hey, so if you're new, I would say just put in the reps.
Speaker: For your first 60 days, at least, I would just go all out.
Speaker: It doesn't really matter where.
Speaker: Just put in the reps and make sure you master overcoming the objections.
Speaker: Okay, but if you feel like you have gotten your presentation down, you know how to overcome objections, all right, then let's start to get more strategic about this stuff.
Speaker: And let's talk about how we can find some good areas.
Speaker: Okay, so if you have had some experience...
Speaker: Knocking doors, you probably know by now what type of person you generally like to approach, what type of income level, what ethnicity.
Speaker: These are all things we should be thinking about.
Speaker: So for me, I did a two-year church mission in Colombia.
Speaker: I speak Spanish, so this is an area that I frequently target is I like talking to the Spanish speakers.
Speaker: And I know we've got lots of Mexican family here in the solar industry.
Speaker: I know lots of friends that I have that are Mexican.
Speaker: They will only target Mexican neighborhoods because they speak the language.
Speaker: They can connect more with those people.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: So maybe you want to target whatever your ethnicity you are.
Speaker: But if you're a white guy like me, there's probably areas or maybe ethnicities that you feel like you have more success with than others.
Speaker: And there's some that's, you know, not to get racist or anything, but there are some ethnicities where I know I'm probably going to stay away from these people because they're going to shop 10 out of 10 times.
Speaker: They're very cheap.
Speaker: As a general rule, great people, but that's just how their culture is.
Speaker: So keep that in mind.
Speaker: And the best way to figure out the ethnicity of an area is I like to use a website.
Speaker: I think it's called citydata.com.
Speaker: You can just Google city data.
Speaker: This will show you the general ethnicity for every city you go to, every area.
Speaker: And then there's even websites.
Speaker: I think on that same website, it'll let you click neighborhood by neighborhood.
Speaker: And you can see, you know, what percentage of people are a certain ethnicity.
Speaker: Okay, so that helps.
Speaker: And then also income level.
Speaker: Maybe you know that the extremely wealthy people are going to go get 10 quotes.
Speaker: Maybe they're less likely to sign up the day of, which is generally my experience.
Speaker: And so maybe you want to target a little bit lower income, maybe middle class.
Speaker: So think about that.
Speaker: And even if you are new, pay attention to what people you have the most success with because you want to know that data for later when you can be a little bit more strategic about the knocking.
Speaker: So that's step number one, figure out what demographic income level you like.
Speaker: And then number two, if you are in a more saturated area like myself, I'm in San Diego, very saturated solar market.
Speaker: Consider hitting maybe outskirts or little towns that are outside of the city.
Speaker: I've always had a lot of success as I go and target people that are a little bit off the beaten path.
Speaker: Hey, we call this off the beaten path knocking.
Speaker: Shout out to my boy, Lenny Gray.
Speaker: If you haven't read it, go read the book, Door-to-Door Millionaire, more door-to-door millionaire.
Speaker: He has like half a chapter on this off the beaten path knocking.
Speaker: But it's a good idea to target areas where they haven't been beaten to death, right?
Speaker: If you know a certain neighborhood, it's right off the freeway.
Speaker: Looks like it's very convenient.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: It's also very convenient for every single other company in your city.
Speaker: So consider going places where it's not convenient.
Speaker: No one likes to drive two hours to some random town that has one stoplight.
Speaker: But if that's the case, do you think it's been hit up as much?
Speaker: Probably not.
Speaker: So consider going to those areas where they haven't been beaten to death.
Speaker: And then number three, consider what time of day you are knocking.
Speaker: If you are knocking maybe more a middle class area, blue collar, it's likely that people aren't going to be home until four or five o'clock, right?
Speaker: Because they're all working.
Speaker: So maybe during the earlier hours, you're targeting people that are more likely to be home.
Speaker: Maybe white collar people that possibly work from home can talk to you.
Speaker: Maybe retired communities, maybe mobile homes.
Speaker: If you can do those, if you have an installer that does those, people are home, right?
Speaker: And we'll talk more about that in a minute.
Speaker: So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
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.
Speaker: But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Speaker: Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
Speaker: It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
Speaker: It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
Speaker: It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
Speaker: I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
Speaker: But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
Speaker: And they did.
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.
Speaker: That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
Speaker: Okay, back to the show.
Speaker: But just be conscious of the time of day because I see it time after time where I send reps out to an area.
Speaker: They talk to very few people just because they're going, they're burning through it.
Speaker: It's early afternoon.
Speaker: No one's home.
Speaker: No one's answering the door.
Speaker: So be conscious of the demographic and what time of day you are knocking.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then here's the second portion of this.
Speaker: Once you find an area, what do you do?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you pick down an area, maybe you have a knocking app.
Speaker: or maybe you're just getting assigned areas.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Which in that case, if you're with a company that's assigning areas, then
Speaker: you're going to have a little bit less control over, you know, the demographics and where you're going.
Speaker: Okay, but once you get assigned an area, once you're in an area, once you pick an area, here's the process that I follow that I think is giving me a lot more tools to have success.
Speaker: Okay, and that is you go through, mark the homes that have solar, and very first thing, your first day knocking the area, go to someone that has solar,
Speaker: Get a positive experience, get a testimonial from that person if you can.
Speaker: And I mentioned in a podcast I did recently, this actually helped me get a deal right off the bat, starting a new area.
Speaker: And that's the power of going and getting a testimonial from someone in that area that has solarity.
Speaker: And you can go listen to that podcast.
Speaker: We can link it.
Speaker: I think it was like, I don't know, five, six, seven episodes ago.
Speaker: But this was an area that there was very few people that had solar.
Speaker: And so even more important, if you're in a city or town or area where there's not much solar, you need to go talk to the people that have it because you're going to face a lot more resistance.
Speaker: People are going to be skeptical.
Speaker: People haven't been hit up as much or heard about solar.
Speaker: They're going to want some social proof that it's legit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: because this is a new thing for them.
Speaker: So even more important, even more important if there's not a lot of solar in your particular area.
Speaker: Yes, that's step number one.
Speaker: Talk to them first.
Speaker: And then the second thing, here's where you can get super dialed.
Speaker: And I like to call it almost sniper knocking is you can take this to another level by going and marking off all the homes that will number one, have solar.
Speaker: But then from there, you can mark all the homes that have a pool that have electric vehicles.
Speaker: Maybe they have shops in the back.
Speaker: Maybe you're knocking in Texas or I did a blitz in Idaho.
Speaker: So many of these homes have shops and stuff in the back because that's all signs that they're sucking a lot of power.
Speaker: It's going to be bigger systems.
Speaker: People probably want to save money more.
Speaker: So go mark off all those homes.
Speaker: And then the other thing, as I mentioned earlier, if you can mark off all the people that are above the age of 65, because you know,
Speaker: These people are more likely to be home during the afternoon because they're probably retired.
Speaker: And you might be asking, is there an easy way to do this?
Speaker: Seems like a lot of work to put in all the time.
Speaker: So here's a couple of tips with that.
Speaker: I would not spend hours and hours doing all this.
Speaker: At some point, you just got to get out there and knock the door.
Speaker: So rather than you taking the time to do all this,
Speaker: I would first consider getting, I don't know, a VA assistant, virtual assistant, someone that can just mark all this for you and hopefully using some type of knocking app, something that makes it easy.
Speaker: But the second thing is the easiest way to do this is by taking advantage of a software called SolarScout, which you probably have heard of if you've been a listener of the podcast.
Speaker: because they're one of our sponsors.
Speaker: But SolarScout is the easiest way to get all this data.
Speaker: You can have it.
Speaker: You can literally mark a filter, have it show you all the homes with electric vehicles, the pools.
Speaker: You can have it.
Speaker: You can click on the home.
Speaker: It'll show you the age of the homeowners there.
Speaker: So just insane.
Speaker: It makes it so much easier for you to go and target these homes and for you to have access to this data.
Speaker: So if you aren't using a software or a tool like SolarScout, then I believe there are some of the other knocking apps show, you know, a limited amount of data.
Speaker: But very, very least you can go and, you know, look at the satellite images of the ones with the pools and ones that maybe look like they're sucking more power.
Speaker: if they have shops or things like that in the back, say.
Speaker: So at the very least, do that.
Speaker: But I would definitely recommend go invest in a tool like SolarScout, which I think SolarScout is really the only one that has this amount of data.
Speaker: And it's just going to make it so much easier instead of taking the shotgun approach.
Speaker: take the sniper approach.
Speaker: Okay, do that you're going to have more conversations, because you're not going to be spinning your wheels during the day when nobody's home.
Speaker: But you can go to the people that are most likely to be home.
Speaker: And then bonus, you got the new move ins.
Speaker: Don't count them out.
Speaker: Solar Scout lets you target the new move ins.
Speaker: If you're not using Solar Scout, you can simply get on a Zillow or a Redfin.
Speaker: But what's even cooler about a tool like Solar Scout is you can now overlap the filters, right?
Speaker: So you can target not only it's a new move in,
Speaker: But now you can see, are they a new move in from out of state?
Speaker: Are they a new move in this over the age of 65?
Speaker: And these, they did some, I think, studying of that data.
Speaker: And they found that the people that have moved in from out of state above the age of 65, they're the most likely lay down cells.
Speaker: Because if they move at that age, it's probably going to be their forever home.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: They're not going to bring up the moving objection.
Speaker: And it's likely that they haven't heard about solar in that market if they move from out of state.
Speaker: So that's the power of a tool like SolarScout.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And this wasn't meant to be an episode promoting SolarScout, but I just love the tool so much.
Speaker: So I had to put an old plug for them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But really, that's the steps I would follow when you're trying to find a new area.
Speaker: So just to recap one more time, figure out the demographic and income level you like.
Speaker: Consider doing the off the beaten path knocking and then make sure you're conscious of the time of day that you were knocking the homes.
Speaker: Then once you pick an area, go to talk to someone, go talk to people that have solar first and then targets.
Speaker: Okay, do the sniper approach and mark off the homes that have, you know, the pools and all the other ones you want.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Yeah, make sure you put the time in, get the conversations in.
Speaker: Sometimes, sometimes I get out there and I don't do any of this.
Speaker: So it's not to say you should be super picky about every door you're knocking all the time.
Speaker: Sometimes I am just going to knock every single door.
Speaker: If it's a street where it looks like tons of people are home, then sometimes I'll just go off and knock that entire street.
Speaker: and throw all this out the window.
Speaker: But especially during times where less people are home, I definitely prefer more of a sniper approach.
Speaker: Okay, so I hope that helps.
Speaker: And thanks again, Darren Todd McCravey.
Speaker: Hopefully I'm saying your name right for the question.
Speaker: Hopefully this helps you be a little more effective as you are choosing areas and as you are knocking your areas.
Speaker: And please, if you have not already, leave us a review for the podcast, share the show.
Speaker: And if you have questions you want answered, just like Darren did, or you have suggestions for guests or topics, would love to hear them.
Speaker: So hit me up.
Speaker: Okay, happy knocking this week.
Speaker: Happy selling.
Speaker: Go crush a lot of deals and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
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 Solrepreneur.
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.
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Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
