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Money Loves Speed
80 Plays2 years ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Taylor's Journey: From $50 to 150 Deals
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
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.
Purpose of the Podcast: Avoid Mistakes & Share Secrets
00:00:19
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.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
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.
00:00:41
Speaker
What's up, solopreneurs?
Speed in Sales: 'Money Loves Speed'
00:00:43
Speaker
Today's topic is why you need to be speedy in your solar cells.
00:00:48
Speaker
A lot of you have heard the term money loves speed.
00:00:52
Speaker
We're going to be jamming on that and talking about why you should be quicker than ever in your solar cells process.
00:00:59
Speaker
Okay, welcome
Podcast Reach and Audience Engagement
00:01:00
Speaker
to the show.
00:01:00
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:02
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.
00:01:09
Speaker
Hope you're doing awesome whenever you are listening to this, whether it's your first time or whether it's your 400, I think we're on like 420 episodes now.
00:01:20
Speaker
A lot of episodes.
00:01:21
Speaker
So thank you for listening whenever you're tuning in to the show.
00:01:25
Speaker
And as usual, we're free and available on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you can find podcasts.
00:01:32
Speaker
And all really we ask you to do is
00:01:36
Speaker
for the show, the fee is, the price is, that you share the show, and that if you have not already, please go leave us a review over on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're listening to the show.
00:01:48
Speaker
It really helps us reach more folks like yourself and hopefully make an impact in the solar industry.
Upcoming Events: SolarCon & Utah Live Event
00:01:55
Speaker
Hey, and I'm probably sounding like a broken record saying this, but if you have not gotten your ticket yet,
00:02:02
Speaker
to two things.
00:02:03
Speaker
Number one, SolarCon, but more importantly, number two, our first ever live event.
00:02:08
Speaker
What are you doing?
00:02:09
Speaker
Go grab your ticket now.
00:02:10
Speaker
We are doing a live event in Sandy, Utah.
00:02:17
Speaker
Technically Draper.
00:02:18
Speaker
But it is going to be on how to 10x your referrals, how to get more referrals, speed up the process in receiving these referrals, and how to just have a lot more success.
00:02:31
Speaker
Okay, so we're going to be talking more and more about it, but we've got some insanely good speakers lined up that have all done 30, 40 referral installs a year minimum.
00:02:41
Speaker
Okay, so make sure you don't miss out.
00:02:43
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All you got to do is go to referrals.com.
00:02:45
Speaker
or sorry, bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
00:02:49
Speaker
It's a little late recording this.
00:02:52
Speaker
Not referrals, but bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
00:02:56
Speaker
It is their referral bootcamp.
00:02:57
Speaker
And there you can go thank your tickets.
00:03:00
Speaker
Or alternatively, you can just buy a ticket to SolarCon with our coupon code, which is Taylor, and send us a screenshot.
00:03:07
Speaker
We're going to hook you up with a free ticket.
Event Recap and Importance of Networking
00:03:09
Speaker
Hey, and then before we jump into the topic today, just want to thank everyone that's come and said what's up at I was over the weekend at Danny Pesce's that are closer spectacular.
00:03:21
Speaker
We'll probably we might do a recap episode on that some good content over there.
00:03:25
Speaker
But yeah, great events.
00:03:27
Speaker
And you guys know you should all be about continuing education and
00:03:31
Speaker
So events like these are great and it's always fun to connect with people.
00:03:35
Speaker
But a shout out to anyone that came and said what's up at the Setter Closer Spectacular over in L.A.,
00:03:42
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It was great hanging out with our buddy there.
00:03:44
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And if you were there, we were passing out flyers to our events, trying to market it a little bit.
00:03:49
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So I would appreciate it if you can spread the word.
00:03:52
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Even if you can't make it to our events, please spread the word.
00:03:55
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Anyone you know that wants to really catapult their referral processes, they should come to our events.
00:04:01
Speaker
We got coming
Storytime: Consequences of Delayed Actions
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up.
00:04:02
Speaker
Okay, so let's talk about why speed is so important in solar cells.
00:04:07
Speaker
Well, there's many things.
00:04:09
Speaker
Recently, I did an episode on the speed of trust.
00:04:13
Speaker
So that's one thing.
00:04:14
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If you can have trust with people, if you have that confidence in people, you're going to speed up your processes.
00:04:22
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Whether you trust your team, you trust your installer, trust your customer, everything's going to go quicker.
00:04:27
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So that's a great book by Covey if you want to go listen to it.
00:04:31
Speaker
But the other thing that I was just reminded of over the weekend is I woke up this morning.
00:04:39
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We're recording this podcast here in March.
00:04:44
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I woke up.
00:04:45
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It's a Monday.
00:04:45
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And we saw several texts from people.
00:04:49
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Hey, what happened with Everbright?
00:04:52
Speaker
Out here, we're selling a lot of these Everbright power purchase agreements.
00:04:57
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And if you are selling Everbright, you might know what I'm talking about, what I'm referring to.
00:05:02
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But we woke up and Everbright had lower the EPCs.
00:05:07
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If you don't know what that means, essentially they had lowered the commissions on our deals by a pretty significant amount.
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So instantly, we got guys freaking out.
00:05:17
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We got guys ready to
Personal Challenges and Lessons in Solar Sales
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just leave the industry.
00:05:20
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Maybe not that bad, but a lot of people were losing their minds over this.
00:05:25
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And I'll be honest, when I first heard it, I'm like, oh my gosh, don't tell me.
00:05:30
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We're losing a ton of commission.
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Come on.
00:05:34
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These things were going so smoothly.
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Of course, it has to come to an end.
00:05:37
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And I was in my head, I was...
00:05:40
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a little bit freaking out too, if I'm being honest.
00:05:42
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So I'm like, man, I know solar is still going to sell, but come on, we have to go through another one of these, dropping our commissions, trying to figure out how to sell for hire, all this stuff.
00:05:53
Speaker
And so, you know, time went on, we calmed down a little bit.
00:05:57
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And it's not the end of the world.
00:06:00
Speaker
Commissions are a little bit lower, but we already are finding solutions.
00:06:04
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And it's not as bad as we were originally thinking is the good news.
00:06:09
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So hit me up if you want more details on that.
00:06:12
Speaker
Hear what our team is doing to kind of have solutions to this, to these lowered EPCs.
00:06:17
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But the reason I bring this up is because...
00:06:21
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Last month, I sold several Everbright accounts.
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And what happened was the installer we were using did not want to install my accounts because they were duplexes.
00:06:31
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They had shared meters.
00:06:33
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So I had to switch to a different installer and I had to resign or I'm in the process of resigning several of these accounts.
00:06:42
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And so first thought that came to my mind when this change happened, and part of the reason why I was, you know, kind of having a mini freak out in my head is because a handful of these deals I signed from last month, I had not re-signed yet.
00:06:59
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And I was just, you know, dragging my feet a little bit, hadn't gotten around to re-sign them, reached out to them once or twice, but hadn't made a ton of attempts yet to go re-sign these people.
00:07:10
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Basically, they're sitting there.
00:07:11
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They're disqualified by the one installer.
00:07:14
Speaker
So they didn't know that.
00:07:15
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They just think that their solar is kind of, you know, in the queue waiting.
00:07:19
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But I hadn't gotten in touch with them other than making one or two attempts just to give them a call.
00:07:24
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I hadn't got a hold of them.
00:07:25
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So in my head, I'm like, oh, my gosh, am I going to have to go re-sign these people?
00:07:29
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And now Everbright, they just lowered the EPCs.
00:07:33
Speaker
Am I going to have to lose a ton of commission on these?
00:07:36
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Or am I going to have to go tell them that their price has gone up significantly?
00:07:40
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So I'm just like, man, this is going to be a headache.
00:07:45
Speaker
So what the lesson was is that I should have acted on this quick.
00:07:52
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The lesson is you should not just leave Dills sitting there.
00:07:56
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with holds on them because you never know whenever right when one of these installers or one of these financers rather is going to drop their EPCs is going to change you know what's going on with it maybe you're selling loans could be tomorrow these people raise the dealer fee with it could be tomorrow that the interest rate you originally sold them at goes away maybe you didn't re-sign them
00:08:20
Speaker
So I just remembered so many times in my solar career where I did not act quick and stuff happens.
00:08:28
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If you've been in the industry a while, you know, if you just leave accounts sitting there, then bad things can happen.
00:08:34
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I've had a number of times where I had to go re-sign a customer.
00:08:38
Speaker
Maybe they needed a panel upgrade.
00:08:41
Speaker
Maybe they needed a new roof.
00:08:43
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Maybe there was just documents.
00:08:45
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Their home was in a trust, whatever the case was.
00:08:49
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I'm like, you know, I'm just going to go sell more accounts.
00:08:51
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I'll figure that out later.
00:08:53
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And sure enough, I wait.
00:08:56
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I don't take care of the hold that's on the account.
00:08:59
Speaker
Then I try to get the hold of the customer a month later and...
00:09:03
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They don't respond.
00:09:05
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They decide, they take it as a sign that they're just going to cancel it just because we didn't figure this out.
00:09:11
Speaker
Or the other thing, I had one account where I left it on hold for a couple months or so.
00:09:17
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They had some trust issue come up, trust document.
00:09:20
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I went back and we almost had to restart the entire process.
00:09:24
Speaker
And at that point, the customer is so frustrated.
00:09:26
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It's been like a month and a half, two months, and I have to go back and
00:09:30
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practically to square one.
00:09:31
Speaker
This is partially the installers fault when this happened because they, I thought they were progressing the account still that we had a permit ready to install.
00:09:40
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And because I didn't get these trust documents or whatever it was that was needed, they didn't progress.
00:09:46
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They didn't have a permit.
00:09:47
Speaker
They didn't do anything.
00:09:48
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So I had to go tell the customer, hey, we got to start over and it's going to be another couple months because we didn't even start on your solar deal.
00:09:57
Speaker
I didn't tell them that.
00:09:59
Speaker
But the customer took it as a sign and is like, you know what?
00:10:02
Speaker
I don't want to wait.
00:10:03
Speaker
This is went on long enough.
00:10:05
Speaker
He canceled the account.
00:10:07
Speaker
$10,000 commission gone just like that.
Accelerating Sales Processes and Customer Satisfaction
00:10:11
Speaker
So learn from my mistake.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I'm positive if you have been in the industry, you've seen people do this.
00:10:17
Speaker
I see people all the time in my office here in San Diego and just from every company that decide, you know, I'm just going to procrastinate.
00:10:26
Speaker
I'm going to not deal with this hold right away.
00:10:28
Speaker
And they lose accounts because of it.
00:10:31
Speaker
They're not if even if the account goes through, they're not seeing that commission check for much longer than they should have to wait.
00:10:38
Speaker
Like you shouldn't have to wait forever and ever and ever to get paid.
00:10:42
Speaker
So remember, money loves speed, whatever you can do to speed up the process for your customer for your install, make sure you do it.
00:10:51
Speaker
And this my story does have a small positive.
00:10:55
Speaker
It's not all bad.
00:10:56
Speaker
Luckily, what I did do, right, and I kind of dodged a bullet with this, is I had quoted out the price that I needed to put these customers at.
00:11:11
Speaker
In other words, I sold them through one installer.
00:11:14
Speaker
And then I switched them to the other.
00:11:16
Speaker
And luckily, I did go out and quote the exact system I needed.
00:11:20
Speaker
I saved the quote in there.
00:11:22
Speaker
And that was done a couple weeks back.
00:11:24
Speaker
I didn't drag my feet on that, luckily.
00:11:26
Speaker
So because of that, it looks like I'm actually going to be able to give them the same pricing.
00:11:31
Speaker
And I'm going to be able to make the same commission on it.
00:11:34
Speaker
Woohoo.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yippee, right?
00:11:36
Speaker
So I'm glad about that.
00:11:37
Speaker
Dodged a bullet.
00:11:38
Speaker
But it's not always going to be like that.
00:11:40
Speaker
You want to make sure...
00:11:41
Speaker
you are not leaving these people out to dry.
00:11:43
Speaker
You want to make sure you're going, re-signing whatever you need to do because it just makes your life that much easier in the beginning.
00:11:50
Speaker
Okay, so remember, money loves speed.
00:11:54
Speaker
Do whatever you can to speed up the process for yourself, for your installs, for your customers.
Balancing Installations and Permissions
00:12:02
Speaker
One of my friends in the industry, he has a
00:12:05
Speaker
assistant and what he does, he actually pays his assistant bonuses to help him speed up these accounts.
00:12:12
Speaker
So he'll literally he's working with different installers, he will go and say, Hey, if you can help me get this installed in 30 days or less, you're going to get a couple hundred dollar bonus for this account.
00:12:24
Speaker
Because he knows that the quicker you can get them installed, the better, right?
00:12:28
Speaker
You're going to have
00:12:30
Speaker
way more retention, you're going to have way more satisfaction, you're going to see that money quicker.
00:12:35
Speaker
And make sure you're also focusing on PTO permission to operate, like we should want speed in the install, because that's when we get paid.
00:12:42
Speaker
But remember, don't sacrifice speed of install.
00:12:45
Speaker
I've seen on the flip side of that,
00:12:47
Speaker
Some of these installers, you can get quick installs and then the PTO is trash.
00:12:52
Speaker
Like six months later, get PTO.
00:12:54
Speaker
So ultimately, we want quick permission to operate for the customer because that's when they're going to turn their system on.
00:13:00
Speaker
That's when they're going to start saving savings.
00:13:02
Speaker
And that's what we should focus on.
00:13:03
Speaker
Not just a quick install, us get paid and then forget about the customer, which I've also seen.
00:13:08
Speaker
Make sure you get a quick install and as quick as possible, PTO permission to operate, which is
00:13:15
Speaker
You can't always control, but there are things you can do.
00:13:18
Speaker
Maybe don't install without a permit because, you know, that's probably going to delay the permission to operate.
00:13:23
Speaker
So all things to consider in this solar coaster we're on.
00:13:26
Speaker
Okay, so hopefully that helps.
Preview: Satema Nali's Upcoming Episode
00:13:28
Speaker
Remember, don't procrastinate.
00:13:30
Speaker
Don't put off what can be done today until tomorrow.
00:13:34
Speaker
Make sure you have speed in the process.
00:13:36
Speaker
And speaking of speed, on the next episode, we're going to be having someone that is the first time I've had on the podcast, a Super Bowl champion.
00:13:44
Speaker
How sick, right?
00:13:45
Speaker
His name is Satema Nali.
00:13:47
Speaker
This guy is a stud.
00:13:48
Speaker
He actually was in the door to door industry.
00:13:51
Speaker
He sold alarms for five years, I believe.
00:13:54
Speaker
Now he is a very successful coach, entrepreneur, runs live events, coaches people.
00:14:01
Speaker
He looks like the rock, just huge, freaking jacked, right?
00:14:05
Speaker
So make sure you tune in.
00:14:06
Speaker
It was such an honor to have him on.
00:14:09
Speaker
He is definitely one of our higher profile guests that we've had on the show.
00:14:13
Speaker
Make sure you don't miss out.
00:14:14
Speaker
He shares his journey being in door-to-door, the lessons he learned from it, and really just the level of obsession it took to have success in door-to-door, which we need to apply in the solar industry.
00:14:25
Speaker
Okay, so can't wait to see you on the next episode.
Solarpreneur Bootcamp and Solcite Community
00:14:28
Speaker
Go grab your tickets to the Solarpreneur Referral Bootcamp.
00:14:33
Speaker
Head over to bootcamp.solarpreneurs.com.
00:14:36
Speaker
We'll see you there and we'll see you on the next episode.
00:14:38
Speaker
Peace out.
00:14:40
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:14:42
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.
00:14:51
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.
00:15:04
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.
00:15:14
Speaker
And it's called Solcite.
00:15:16
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.
00:15:36
Speaker
Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:15:41
Speaker
So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:15:49
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:15:57
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.