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 fell.
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, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong here with another podcast.
Speaker: As usual, we're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have an awesome time in the solar industry.
Speaker: If you're new to the podcast, welcome to the show.
Speaker: We're running on over 250 episodes now.
Speaker: So big thank you for everyone that has supported the show, that has shared it, that's left reviews.
Speaker: You guys are the ones that keep this show running.
Speaker: So thank you so much.
Speaker: Today's topic, we're going to jump into a little bit about framing.
Speaker: If you don't know what that is, that is basically setting the frame of how you want to control the cell.
Speaker: But before we jump into that, well, I'll preface, I just got out of an appointment.
Speaker: Some of you know I got a cat allergy, so I'm sniffling a little bit here, trying to wipe my eyes, that water.
Speaker: Usually I carry around some allergy pills.
Speaker: That's the whole hack right there.
Speaker: If you get allergies like I do, get some allergy pills.
Speaker: Maybe we should get some sponsors of the show.
Speaker: But hopefully you don't have allergies like me because there's a lot of people with pets out there.
Speaker: So I'm constantly sneezing and sniffling and I did not bring my allergy pills this time.
Speaker: Long explanation for why you're going to hear me sniffling at times.
Speaker: But anyways, let's jump into the topic here.
Speaker: We are talking about framing.
Speaker: And before we jump into what framing is, why it's important, how you can utilize it in solar, I've talked about this before.
Speaker: Great book that goes super in-depth in this.
Speaker: It's called Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff.
Speaker: That goes super in-depth.
Speaker: I need to read it again because he goes way deep into it.
Speaker: But today we're just going to talk about the basics of it.
Speaker: And so as we get into this, I want to share a little study that was done on framing.
Speaker: And that is this.
Speaker: They did a study for people gambling and they gave them two questions.
Speaker: First question, they said, hey, you I'm going to give you 50 bucks and you can either gamble it and possibly win big, possibly lose it.
Speaker: Or you can walk away right now and just lose 30 bucks automatically.
Speaker: What do you want to do?
Speaker: And then to a second group of people, this was actually a 2006 study, by the way, they did in the journal science for all you science geeks out there.
Speaker: But anyways, the second scenario, they said, all right, you can gamble this money and risk losing all the same 50 bucks.
Speaker: You can gamble, risk losing it, or you can walk away right now and we'll give you 20 bucks for your trouble.
Speaker: So two different scenarios, two different ways of saying it.
Speaker: And I actually had to read this a few times because it kind of went over my head.
Speaker: Okay, so if you're like me, you might have to listen to this again.
Speaker: But again, the two scenarios.
Speaker: First was you can gamble the 50 bucks, win big or lose it, or you can walk away and just lose 30 bucks.
Speaker: Or second scenario, you can gamble the money, risk losing all of it, or you can walk away right now and we'll give you 20 bucks for your trouble.
Speaker: So hopefully you caught that the second time.
Speaker: It took me a minute.
Speaker: But if you listen closely, those are the exact same things they're explaining there.
Speaker: The ones lose 30 bucks.
Speaker: It was 50 bucks total, right?
Speaker: So they're saying lose 30 bucks in the first one without $20 left over.
Speaker: And the second one is keep 20 bucks.
Speaker: So these people, they're given the exact same scenario, just worded differently.
Speaker: And the results of it are pretty interesting.
Speaker: 62% chose to gamble the money when the other option was to lose $30.
Speaker: But when they changed the wording of it, only 43% chose to gamble when they had the option to keep $20.
Speaker: Exact same thing framed differently.
Speaker: And so it was a different result.
Speaker: So it's a cognitive bias.
Speaker: This is kind of the definition.
Speaker: Cognitive bias that causes people to react to something in different ways depending on how the information is presented to them.
Speaker: What does this have to do with solar?
Speaker: What does this have to do with cells?
Speaker: If you are not using this right now, there are a lot of ways we can use this in solar.
Speaker: Okay, so I'm going to talk about a few of them, but hopefully as we talk about this study, hopefully you're already thinking of ways that you're currently using it, maybe without even thinking about it, but you should be using this a lot in solar.
Speaker: and you should be using it to present to your customers because the way you present it, the way you frame things, that's going to get them to think differently.
Speaker: That's going to get them, especially for people that weren't interested in solar to begin with, framing is how you open up a new way of thinking to them.
Speaker: Okay, and so a couple quick examples.
Speaker: When you are out selling,
Speaker: Are you telling people, hey, we're doing solar, so it's just a 25-year loan we're going to make you take out?
Speaker: Interest rate is probably going to be, I don't know, anywhere from 3% to 6%.
Speaker: You're going to be paying for the next 25 years on it.
Speaker: So it's going to take you a while to pay off, but you're going to love it.
Speaker: But yeah, it's just a 25-year loan from probably anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000.
Speaker: It'll only take you 25 years to pay off.
Speaker: How many of you are out knocking on doors saying that?
Speaker: Hopefully nobody.
Speaker: If you're saying that, you're probably not getting very many sales because how many people in their right mind are going to listen to you say, hey, we're doing 25 year loans.
Speaker: You're going to be paying for the next 25 years.
Speaker: What do you think you want to do it?
Speaker: You're going to get shut down left and right.
Speaker: So hopefully you're already doing this framing.
Speaker: And that is when we're presenting solar.
Speaker: you're not telling them it's a 25-year loan.
Speaker: You're saying, hey, we're redirecting.
Speaker: We're doing the redirection program.
Speaker: It's actually all we're doing is just taking the money you are already paying to the utility and redirecting that towards solar and you own it.
Speaker: And it's going to be a set amount.
Speaker: So you're
Speaker: saying the same thing just in a different way.
Speaker: And obviously people understand the details later as you get into it.
Speaker: But if you frame it to them correctly, if you tell them they're going to have a fixed payment, if you tell them they're going to be redirecting what they're paying, then they're going to be much more likely to listen to you.
Speaker: And if you're selling 25-year loans, like I am a lot of times,
Speaker: then that has a huge difference on how you explain it too.
Speaker: Instead of saying, hey, you're going to be paying this for the next 25 years, you're presenting it to them as, hey, what's really cool about this is unlike the utility, because you know how you've been paying utility ever since you've been in the home, right?
Speaker: And you're going to pay till the day you die.
Speaker: So what we're doing with this, what's really unique is for you guys or whoever is in the home, this bill is actually going to end at 25 years and then you're never going to pay.
Speaker: You're not going to pay after that.
Speaker: Systems owned outright, you're just producing your power.
Speaker: It's kind of like paying for your own herd of cows and then you get all the free milk after it, after you buy out the cows.
Speaker: Hey, so you're framing it and you're using analogies.
Speaker: Hey, hopefully a lot of you are using analogies like that, like the cows in the field.
Speaker: You should probably know the gas station analogy.
Speaker: Hey, Mr. Homeowner, wouldn't it be great?
Speaker: Imagine if you could have gone back five years ago when gas was like $3 a gallon or $2.50 and locked in that rate.
Speaker: You obviously would have done that, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so that's all we're doing with the program here.
Speaker: We're just locking a rate that you're going to be paying no matter what.
Speaker: It's a non-negotiable.
Speaker: We're just locking it now at a set amount.
Speaker: So you're telling them all these things, but the way you present it to them, the way you frame it to them, that's going to have a huge effect on how they think of it.
Speaker: And that's going to have a huge effect on how excited they are about it and how they see themselves using it.
Speaker: If you can paint that picture in their head, use that future pacing as Jordan Belfort describes.
Speaker: it.
Speaker: If you can get them imagining how they're going to use, they're going to be able to use more AC, they're going to be able to enjoy a fixed amount, a fixed payment in the little summer months where they're usually suffering.
Speaker: If you can get them thinking that way and frame it that way, your job is going to be so much easier selling solar.
Speaker: So I want you to think of ways you can frame what you're saying.
Speaker: There's a lot of different ways you can frame it, but hopefully you're already doing a few of those.
Speaker: You know, the 25 years, that's the way you want.
Speaker: You want to get them to think it's a 25 year that ends, not a 25 year payment, not a payment that they have to keep paying for 25 years, right?
Speaker: And then you want them to get to be thinking about the monthly cost, not the total cost, right?
Speaker: And some people are all about that.
Speaker: Hey, what's the total cost of this?
Speaker: What's the total amount?
Speaker: And yeah, you got to tell them that you're not going to lie to them.
Speaker: But hopefully you can do the T chart.
Speaker: If you don't already have this, go to closers.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: That's closers.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: You can get a copy of the T chart that I use in all my cells.
Speaker: It is basically for the same reason of framing.
Speaker: And all it's doing, it's comparing the utility to solar.
Speaker: And it's giving the apples to apples comparison.
Speaker: And you're basically getting them to think in terms of that frame, in terms of the cost they're going to pay to the utility over the long haul versus what they pay with solar.
Speaker: And then break it down to the ridiculous, break it down to the monthly amount and have them see exactly what they're paying.
Speaker: So this is super useful in framing.
Speaker: I would use a T-chart like that.
Speaker: Another good example is in California, we do PPAs sometimes.
Speaker: It's a power purchase agreement.
Speaker: And not everyone does these.
Speaker: California, they're huge out here, but that's just where it's basically a lease.
Speaker: But they're buying the energy from the solar company.
Speaker: They're just paying an amount for the kilowatt.
Speaker: So here it's, I don't know, pretty common 19, 20 cent PPAs that they're
Speaker: buying the power now.
Speaker: And most of these PPAs, they have an increase every year.
Speaker: Usually it's 2.9%.
Speaker: Obviously we can reduce that if we want to cut better deals and everything.
Speaker: But the way we frame that to the customers, we're not saying, Hey, Mr. Homeowner, unfortunately this is going to go up 2.9% every year.
Speaker: So you're just going to see an increase every year, but not a huge deal.
Speaker: Hey, how excited are they going to be about that?
Speaker: If you frame it to them that way, just tell them don't like that.
Speaker: So the way we frame that when we are doing PPAs, which by the way, we do mostly, at least in my situation, I typically only do them for someone that's not going to get the tax credit, the tax benefit, because we take that and apply it for them in the PPA.
Speaker: But as you're explaining this, you say, hey, what's really cool about this, Mr. Homeowner?
Speaker: is instead of your bill going up like six to 10% even a year, like it's doing right now with utility, guess what?
Speaker: With this, it actually is capped at 2.9%.
Speaker: So that means for you guys, you're never going to see your bill go up more than 2.9% a year, which that's like pennies on the dollar.
Speaker: So not a big deal.
Speaker: So people love that about that.
Speaker: It just locks in it and set them out and hedges against the inflation.
Speaker: See how you explain that?
Speaker: So even something that's not the greatest for the customer, going up 2.9%, if you frame it like that, then most of the time, you're going to give yourself a way better chance of them being excited about that or seeing that as a positive and not as a negative.
Speaker: So that's what framing does.
Speaker: It really helps paint the picture in their minds and it helps them see it in a positive light instead of a negative.
Speaker: So think about ways you can use this now.
Speaker: Hopefully you're already using framing, but think about some ways you can use this.
Speaker: I would write them down, improve this, and then use those analogies.
Speaker: Use the gas station analogy.
Speaker: Use the cow analogy.
Speaker: A good analogy that I got from my friend Alex Smith is renting versus owning analogy saying, hey, Mr. Homeowner,
Speaker: So if I were to tell you, I'm going to buy your house from you and you guys just pay me rent, but I give you a $200 discount from what you're paying right now for your mortgage, would you do that?
Speaker: They're going to say no, right?
Speaker: Maybe what about $300?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And so painting that picture for him and saying, okay, well, so yeah, that's actually what we're doing with the electricity.
Speaker: We're just turning you into the owner of your energy and then get him to think in terms of renting versus owning.
Speaker: So play around with it.
Speaker: Send this to someone who needs to use more framing.
Speaker: You can use it as you're setting appointments.
Speaker: You can use it over the phone.
Speaker: You can use it as you're closing deals.
Speaker: Make sure you are framing.
Speaker: Become a master of this and you're going to be unstoppable.
Speaker: Hope that helps.
Speaker: Hope there wasn't too much sniffling from my cat allergies on the show today.
Speaker: And I can't wait to see you guys closing more deals.
Speaker: Tag me on Instagram, on Facebook, and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker: What's up, solarpreneurs?
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 Solopreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new and you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
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.
