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 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: What's going on, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Taylor Armstrong, your host, here with another episode of the greatest podcast in the whole world for soloprofessionals.
Speaker: And we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker: If you are new to the show,
Speaker: You are in for a real journey.
Speaker: We're going to take you through this solar coaster.
Speaker: Or if you're returning, thank you very much for trusting us with all things solar and your solar education.
Speaker: And just wanted to give a quick shout out before we get into the content here today to the latest review we had yesterday.
Speaker: A review from John J on March 14th.
Speaker: He says, great content.
Speaker: I def can relate to most podcasts.
Speaker: Glad I came across this opportunity.
Speaker: John, thank you so much for the review.
Speaker: It means the world when I can see that I am helping you guys progress in your solar journey.
Speaker: Because what I'm trying to make this is really the resource that I did not have when I first started in solar.
Speaker: Because I know something like this would have just jump started my solar career and got me results way quicker.
Speaker: So as always, if you have suggestions for the podcast, comments,
Speaker: improvements or guests you want featured on the show would love to hear it because I'm trying to make this the best resource out there for solar pros and always trying to improve.
Speaker: So hit me up, shoot me an email or shoot me a DM.
Speaker: Would love to hear from you.
Speaker: And then last announcement, if you have not purchased your tickets for Solarcon, probably sound like a broken record saying this, but go grab your tickets.
Speaker: You're going to get a killer discount if you use the code SOLARPRENEUR.
Speaker: And if you want to use that discount and shoot me an email or a DM with your receipt, you're going to get hooked up.
Speaker: I'm going to give you access to our Sol Society training library.
Speaker: And then I'm going to give you access to also our recording app, our serial app.
Speaker: You're going to have free access to that, an extended trial, a month-long access where you can check it out and...
Speaker: or get some feedback on your presentations.
Speaker: So we'd love to see you in there and we'd love to see you at SolarCon, almost at DoorDorkon.
Speaker: This is SolarCon.
Speaker: So go grab your ticket now.
Speaker: Don't miss out.
Speaker: It's going to be a great time.
Speaker: Today's episode happened because of two conversations in specific that I had.
Speaker: So I'm going to share with you these two conversations that really got me thinking about
Speaker: just about the importance of our marketing, our follow-up, why we need to be doing this.
Speaker: As many of you know, we're on the last days of NetMeeting 2.0 here in California, which if you're not familiar with that, that is when they're April 14th is the deadline when they're cutting the export rates
Speaker: of energy produced by 75%.
Speaker: They're cutting it from 30 cents, about 30 cents to about 8 cents, pretty dramatic decrease.
Speaker: And bottom line for us, it's just gonna require us to sell batteries out here in California.
Speaker: That's the option.
Speaker: And I know people are freaking out about this.
Speaker: I think we're going to be fine.
Speaker: Really, batteries, solar with batteries here in California is better than just solar in a lot of markets.
Speaker: Like people are saving more money with a battery than most other markets.
Speaker: So I'm not too concerned.
Speaker: I know it is going to force us to sell a different way, build more value.
Speaker: And by all means, if you want to leave California, go ahead.
Speaker: More deals for me out here.
Speaker: I'll take your deals.
Speaker: But the conversations I had recently, one of my buddies I sold with him at my first company called New Power for a couple of years.
Speaker: And he's now more marketing.
Speaker: He doesn't do a lot of solar.
Speaker: But once this deadline hit, it's like, huh, why not sell a few deals?
Speaker: So got on the phone with him, was just asking him what's going on.
Speaker: And he's like, yo, Taylor, um, I got eight deals last week and I'm like eight deals.
Speaker: You're not even doing solar like full time.
Speaker: What do you mean?
Speaker: He's like, yeah, I had eight closes last week.
Speaker: Um, like, dude, you're, you're not even working in solar.
Speaker: What are you doing?
Speaker: And so he's more focused on marketing lately.
Speaker: what he told me was this is he took and he's he's working with one of his buddies who's over at sunrun but what they did was they took his list of installed customers i think it was a list of 500 a thousand installed customers from sunrun
Speaker: And he just started a text campaign.
Speaker: He sent all his Sunrun customers just four texts, a little text sequence that was basically like, hey, we're on our deadlines to add panels.
Speaker: If you are planning on getting an electric vehicle, adding a hot tub, a pool or anything else that would require more energy.
Speaker: these are your last days to do it where it's going to make the most sense let me know if you want some details on it and then he had i think three more texts sent out one was like when's a good time to call one was like do you plan on using more energy and then just kind of a last last ditch effort text that went out
Speaker: So from doing this, he had a bunch of people respond back.
Speaker: Yeah, I want to I want to check out adding more panels for my home.
Speaker: Then it was just kind of like sifting through them, right?
Speaker: Kind of a funnel.
Speaker: A lot of them would send their bill later.
Speaker: He broke it down and long story short, ended up getting eight closes just from this.
Speaker: And these were all like lay down cells.
Speaker: He told me just showed up.
Speaker: They're the ones that reached out to him, closed them.
Speaker: So it got me thinking, am I organized enough that I have all my installed customers in one place?
Speaker: Could I send out a text like this to you?
Speaker: and get lay down customers.
Speaker: And we have obviously here in California, this massive deadline that's helping us.
Speaker: But for you, whatever market you're selling in, do you have all your customers organized?
Speaker: And this is also more so for people that have jumped to different companies.
Speaker: Because if you've been in the same company the whole time, it's probably a lot easier.
Speaker: I'm sure you have all your customers in one place and one CRM.
Speaker: But myself, I will admit, where I've been at multiple companies now, I have taken some of my lists.
Speaker: Luckily, I do have most of my customers now in a CRM.
Speaker: But I know that I've missed some and it's a lot tougher for me to figure out like exactly who this was, where, what area.
Speaker: I don't have addresses for all of them.
Speaker: And so it just got me thinking, why am I not keeping track of all my installs?
Speaker: This was eight easy deals in a week, but people that reached out just from sending off a few texts.
Speaker: And a second conversation I had, I told you I had two conversations, was with another buddy that I used to work for, work with at this same company, my first company.
Speaker: And he's now at a different company too.
Speaker: And I was telling him this strategy.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, we've got this deadline.
Speaker: Why don't we send off texts?
Speaker: Why don't we do something like our buddy Kevin here?
Speaker: That's his name.
Speaker: And he's like, well, shoot, man.
Speaker: I don't even have my list of installs.
Speaker: I don't even have my people that I helped over at New Power or First Company.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, dude, that's a huge opportunity.
Speaker: that you don't have access to now.
Speaker: And so luckily I do have my install saved, but if you have jumped from other companies, like are you saving your list of customers?
Speaker: Because it's probably going to be tough to go back and get a customer list if you left a company.
Speaker: You're probably not going to be able to march up to your old company and say, hey, give me my list of customers.
Speaker: Might be a little challenging.
Speaker: They might not want to give you that.
Speaker: So lesson learned.
Speaker: If you leave a company, make sure you take all your customer data.
Speaker: This is important pieces of information along with your leads lists.
Speaker: Like my first company, I generated...
Speaker: a thousand plus leads, probably more than that, but all your leads in your knocking apps, your sales rabbit, your Quattiva, your rep card.
Speaker: Are you accessing all that?
Speaker: Are you keeping the data?
Speaker: And so make sure you download that data if you ever leave a company because it can be like gold in this situation.
Speaker: And trust me, if California is creating a deadline like this, California is a super green state.
Speaker: Do you think this is going to happen in Texas, in Florida, in these other states?
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: They're probably going to make changes eventually to net metering, to what they're doing.
Speaker: And so when you're in California,
Speaker: position like this where you're up against a deadline are you gonna be able to send your customers a text instantly and get he deals in a week from doing that so that is my invitation not as my challenge are you prepared are you saving your customer data do you have access to it at a press of a button and do you have a CRM okay a great CRM I'm using my buddy Brent Attaway he has CRM X and
Speaker: which hit me up if you want a little discount code for that too.
Speaker: We got offer going around with that.
Speaker: But it's a great CRM where you can put all your leads in there.
Speaker: You can send mass texts at the click of a button.
Speaker: Also, there's rep card.
Speaker: But a tool like this CRMX allows you to organize all your leads into pipelines.
Speaker: You can see all your install customers into lists.
Speaker: And if you do want to do something like this, allows you to get massive results.
Speaker: And disclaimer, I have not sent out the text yet.
Speaker: I am going to text all my previous customers and hopefully I'll have good things to report.
Speaker: Hoping I can go get my eight closed deals.
Speaker: Maybe not that many because I don't have a list of a thousand.
Speaker: But I do have a list of probably 400, close to 400 installs.
Speaker: So my plan is I'm going to text them.
Speaker: I'm going to follow up.
Speaker: I'm going to see, hey, do they want more panels added?
Speaker: And then just another principle with this, I have friends in the industry where they send off a quarterly text to their install.
Speaker: I think this is even more important after the first year.
Speaker: But they send in a text just to check in, do a little bill review.
Speaker: Hey, how's your system producing compared to what you're using?
Speaker: They do this every three months for the first year.
Speaker: And then at the first year, they do a system review at their true update to see, okay, are they needing more panels?
Speaker: Is it matching up?
Speaker: And they're getting deals just by doing this.
Speaker: So it's a great reminder for all of us.
Speaker: If we can be organized, if we can follow up with our customers like this, then there's a lot of money on the table that sometimes we're not taking advantage of.
Speaker: Because I know I have customers out there where they've added on systems, added on panels with other solar guys.
Speaker: And if I would have been following up with them, they would have added panels with me.
Speaker: So get your systems dialed in.
Speaker: If you don't have someone in your company helping out with marketing, take it on yourself to get organized.
Speaker: Put them in a notebook if you have to.
Speaker: I know guys that are old school that just keep every single customer.
Speaker: in a notebook, they can go back, look through them.
Speaker: Okay, and not the most efficient way, I don't think, okay, because if you get one of these CRMs, you can have organized and you can do a lot of marketing, a lot of texting, a lot of emailing, super quick and calling them too.
Speaker: So that's the best way.
Speaker: But second best, if you want to be old school, throw them in a notebook, figure out a way to be organized.
Speaker: And don't get left behind when there's a deadline.
Speaker: don't miss out on these money-making opportunities.
Speaker: So I hope that was a reminder for you.
Speaker: It doesn't matter if you're in a different market besides California because there's always going to be opportunities to follow up with your customers on a yearly basis, to check in, to ask for referrals, and to see if people need more panels.
Speaker: So make sure you're doing that.
Speaker: Don't leave money on the table like I have.
Speaker: I know I've lost out on tens and tens of thousands of dollars.
Speaker: just by not being effective as I could have been in organization, in my CRM management, and in my follow-up.
Speaker: So learn from my mistakes.
Speaker: Go get those deals.
Speaker: Do your follow-ups.
Speaker: We'll see you on the next podcast.
Speaker: Don't miss out because we are going to have a very special guest.
Speaker: His name is John Soriano.
Speaker: He is one of the top dogs over at Legacy.
Speaker: He's running all of San Diego.
Speaker: He's over multiple offices for Legacy, one of their, I think VP's probably getting the title wrong here, but I will get the title right on the podcast.
Speaker: So make sure you tune in.
Speaker: He is just dominating in life and business and has grown a massive organization.
Speaker: So don't miss out.
Speaker: He's going to drop some nuggets on us for next episode, and we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker: Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
Speaker: 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.
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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: And it's called Solcitee.
Speaker: This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros 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.
Speaker: Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
Speaker: So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
Speaker: This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
Speaker: We'll see you on the inside.
