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: Hey, what's going on solopreneurs?
Speaker: Today we're going to be doing a little presentation analysis, a little pitch breakdown, if you will, from some of our favorite YouTubers over at Real Sales Dynamics.
Speaker: So you can go subscribe to them, check out their channel, but we're going to be breaking down some of their content, the good, the bad, the ugly.
Speaker: Let's get into it.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: 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: Welcome to the Solar Entrepreneur Podcast.
Speaker: in case you didn't know where you're at.
Speaker: We are coming up on the end of summer.
Speaker: So I hope you are pushing hard.
Speaker: I just told this to my team today in one of our trainings.
Speaker: And that's that's pretty soon.
Speaker: We're going to have like two hours less of daylight.
Speaker: I'm selling in California.
Speaker: Once daylight saving time rolls around, it's getting dark at 530 here.
Speaker: So wherever you're listening to this, whenever you're listening, make sure you take advantage of every day because trust me,
Speaker: things are going to change.
Speaker: Commissions are going to go down.
Speaker: Regulations are going to happen.
Speaker: So we need to push hard to take advantage of every opportunity we have.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so enough of the soapbox stuff.
Speaker: Just a reminder, if you have not left us a review, if you have not shared the show, that's the price tag of a mission here.
Speaker: Please do me a favor, go share the show, leave us a review.
Speaker: Been a little bit since we've gotten a review.
Speaker: So even if it's one star, you hate the podcast, please.
Speaker: or one of our recent reviews was that I'm too monotone.
Speaker: So I'm trying to work on the tonality a little bit, try to be a little bit less monotone.
Speaker: But hey, leave us what leave us your honest opinions.
Speaker: And shoot me a message if you have comments for anything we can improve.
Speaker: You can also email me over at taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: I do try to get to the messages we have been all backed up.
Speaker: So apologies if I take a minute, but we are working through those.
Speaker: And so again, this video, it came from our friends over at Real Sales Dynamics.
Speaker: I'm friends with a lot of the guys over at that channel.
Speaker: You got Johnny, actually went and did jujitsu with them a month or two ago.
Speaker: Their video guy, Sam, great friends with, actually trained him in solar.
Speaker: So I know most of these guys pretty well, and they've got some good content.
Speaker: It's entertaining, you know, live content on the doors.
Speaker: But they had a little bit of a controversial video lately.
Speaker: So if you like controversy, you're going to like this podcast.
Speaker: Maybe you've seen the video, but it's entitled, He Steals a Deal from a Crooked Solar Competitor, How to Sell Solar Better.
Speaker: So at the time of this recording, this was about a month ago, and it drew some attention.
Speaker: This video actually got shared around on some of the Facebook groups.
Speaker: Some people were bashing on a little bit because he does give some misinformation in the deal.
Speaker: And I don't know if he means to, but he does say some things that aren't true, right?
Speaker: He says that it was a Sunnova deal.
Speaker: He tells the homeowner that they can, that they will own this, the system after the end of the lease term, which is not true.
Speaker: A little bit of misinformation going on with the batteries, making it sound like the batteries are going to be producing power.
Speaker: So he didn't need a full offset.
Speaker: So yeah, a couple of things went wrong during this, but he does do a good job actually getting the appointment.
Speaker: And so the main part I want to analyze, if you want to get into all the controversy, you can go check out the video.
Speaker: We'll link it.
Speaker: You can read some of the comments people talking about on Facebook.
Speaker: It's whatever.
Speaker: You know, hopefully this homeowner got the education he needs.
Speaker: And yeah, we just all need it.
Speaker: learn to do a better job, make sure we're not spreading misinformation.
Speaker: But yeah, today we're just going to mostly analyze the part where he is booking the appointments.
Speaker: He switches this over from the crooked competitor, which in this case is Vivint apparently is a crooked competitor.
Speaker: Okay, so we're going to hear some things he did as good, some things that he could, I think, improve on.
Speaker: Let's just hear how he switches this over.
Speaker: And really, I want to focus on the positive piece of that.
Speaker: You can go read up on all the drama later, but we're going to focus on that piece of it.
Speaker: Because if we listen the whole video, it is like a 27-minute video.
Speaker: So I'm going to skip to a few portions, and we're going to do some analysis.
Speaker: So let's get into it.
Speaker: He's a homeowner, a writer, so I didn't push onto the next.
Speaker: How's it going, man?
Speaker: How's it going?
Speaker: Are you the boss over here?
Speaker: Homeowner?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: We're just doing, we're dropping off the energy savings report.
Speaker: Saw the owners.
Speaker: Oh, congrats, man.
Speaker: Who'd you guys go with?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Does he end up doing the lease or the loan?
Speaker: He ended up doing a lease or a loan?
Speaker: A loan.
Speaker: That's awesome, bro.
Speaker: It's a 20-year loan.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: cool brother the only thing i didn't like about it is yeah my payment started off low but towards the end it like doubles oh because of the tax credit because of the tax credit why does it double because my paper is going from 200 a month i'll just make it all the way up to 390 okay like the last five years it goes up some of that weed did they talk to you about the tax credit
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, that's who it was.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So what we do, it's a little bit different.
Speaker: It's called rate protection program, where you don't take out a loan, no lien.
Speaker: You pay a cheaper rate.
Speaker: So there's no liability for you guys.
Speaker: It's all on us as a company.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it goes up like the 2% every year.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Then you're good hands, brother.
Speaker: Okay, so it's funny here.
Speaker: The homeowner explains to him what he's getting.
Speaker: And then this sells up, he goes on and says the exact same thing that he's getting and tries to sell him the same thing.
Speaker: So of course he says, oh, you're good at the end because he just offered him the same thing.
Speaker: So the lesson here is if you're going to try to switch someone over, you got to present them something different.
Speaker: You can't just explain the same thing to them and expect they're going to switch over.
Speaker: just because you're more handsome or whatever, like give him a reason to switch over.
Speaker: So he tries to get into something, realizes the same thing.
Speaker: And then it's just like, all right, I'm out of here.
Speaker: So you'll hear what he does next, but he should have, at this point you want to present them with different products, different offering.
Speaker: Maybe you present them a loan option, right?
Speaker: Cause they're looking at a lease, uh,
Speaker: or a power purchase agreement.
Speaker: So you got to be different.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, this shows that there's maybe a little lack of education.
Speaker: I don't know for sure why he didn't understand this, but it should be obvious that he got a lease.
Speaker: It's going up.
Speaker: So I'm not sure what this rep was thinking, but yeah, you got to present to him something different.
Speaker: So let's hear how he recovers, where he goes from here.
Speaker: Yeah, you're about to say hello.
Speaker: Do you know any homeowners over here that might go solar?
Speaker: Anybody that owns a house?
Speaker: I'm about to switch it over.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It was like a long ago.
Speaker: You know we have a 390.
Speaker: You know we have a 0%, bro.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: He has a lease with a 2.9.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's... Should we go back to him?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So it's funny that the video guy has to be the one to tell him, hey, you know, we have a different option.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, OK, guess I should have gone back.
Speaker: So don't make that mistake.
Speaker: Get him right when it's hot.
Speaker: Get him right then.
Speaker: And he had a key opportunity here.
Speaker: This guy was complaining about he didn't like that it was going up.
Speaker: He didn't like it was his for the taking.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he didn't realize that has to go back.
Speaker: But again, he should have offered him.
Speaker: maybe a loan product, or in this case, they have a zero escalator option, which is also a good option.
Speaker: So let's hear how he recovers and gets himself back in front of the homeowner.
Speaker: Thanks for working with Vivint.
Speaker: So it's only right that I, uh, absolutely.
Speaker: We have a zero percent escalator, brother.
Speaker: So like a zero percent escalator and it's the same program.
Speaker: It's called rate protection.
Speaker: So you're at like 18 cents with LCEC.
Speaker: We locked in at like 14 cents.
Speaker: It never goes up.
Speaker: What was the monthly payment that they had you guys at starting?
Speaker: It was like $1.90 something.
Speaker: No, it came out to $2.04.
Speaker: So we would lock you in right at $2.04.
Speaker: It never goes up.
Speaker: So if you watch the video, it's a little entertaining.
Speaker: The homeowners look at them like, dude, no way you're out of your mind.
Speaker: And I think here you got to keep these things simple because he's saying we got an option that's a zero escalator.
Speaker: Just remember, people are not from our industry.
Speaker: They don't know what zero escalator means.
Speaker: What does that even mean?
Speaker: So whenever you're talking to homeowner, simplify it as much as you can.
Speaker: Put yourself in their shoes.
Speaker: If you don't know a thing about solar panels, about electricity rates,
Speaker: Someone comes to you talking about a zero escalator.
Speaker: It's like, what is that?
Speaker: So I think he gets it by the end of that, but took a lot more explaining than I think it could have.
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: So it's like, go up, explain it, just say, hey, so I know Vivint, they showed you this option where it goes up.
Speaker: The reason we're getting so many people looking into this, we have actually, we have an option where it would not go up.
Speaker: It would just stay at a set rate.
Speaker: So remember you were saying that you didn't like that they went up, increased to three, 400 by the end of 20 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So with this, it would stay at a set rate.
Speaker: But the only thing is it is tougher to qualify for.
Speaker: Okay, throw in something.
Speaker: Because part of his problem is some homeowners, they just shut you down instantly.
Speaker: And especially if the cells are up before you did a good job.
Speaker: They're going to explain that, hey, there's going to be lots of companies coming by trying to scam you, saying this and that and the other.
Speaker: Most of the time it's a scam.
Speaker: So just let them know that you're taken care of.
Speaker: Hey, unfortunately, we have to do this because there's lots of people.
Speaker: You can steal deals, right?
Speaker: You got to be ethical about it.
Speaker: No permit poaching, none of that garbage.
Speaker: But you should be prepping your customers that they are going to get...
Speaker: pitch they're going to get presented to after you knock their door after you sell them and this whoever sold them the first system did not do that so this is why he's having the conversation in the first place because this door is wide open this homeowner is ripe for the picking you can tell that he's not that happy with the old current contract he signed which is why he's given this rep so much time here to explain and potentially switch him over but to make it more believable
Speaker: Because if you see the look in the video, if you go watch it, the homeowner just does not believe what he's saying, really.
Speaker: So he needs to throw in some takeaways.
Speaker: Like, hey, the one thing is, I know you're thinking, okay, that sounds too good to be true.
Speaker: You have to qualify for it.
Speaker: It's tough to qualify for.
Speaker: Throw in some neighbor examples.
Speaker: That will help you increase the credibility, maybe throw in a video or two of neighbors that have done it.
Speaker: Because if people don't believe he got lucky, but most people I feel like in this situation will just be like, nah, you know what?
Speaker: That already sounds too good to be true.
Speaker: My other rep that sold me the system, he told me people will be coming.
Speaker: So this can't be true and shut it down.
Speaker: So anyways, a few things he can improve on.
Speaker: So let's hear what he does next.
Speaker: Who's your neighbor right here?
Speaker: I can pop by right after and show you.
Speaker: Just so you can kind of see, like, the difference.
Speaker: And another cool thing is with the lease programs, there's no, like, cancellation fees with the other company.
Speaker: They're waiting on me right now, though.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I already got a permit for the solar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I got the permit open to all the builders and I know.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, see, everything happens for a reason.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I can pop by right after we pop out the neighborhood because they end up getting solared.
Speaker: and they need seven more kilowatts because they're getting two bills.
Speaker: So what we could do is... That's what they actually designed it to where they could get 100%.
Speaker: Okay, I got four or five.
Speaker: other companies that have K-Buy and I told them there's no purpose if I can't get 100%.
Speaker: If you give me 60%, 70%, there's no purpose to me.
Speaker: It doesn't make sense to me to have two different bills.
Speaker: So the other three companies told you that they couldn't?
Speaker: Yeah, it was three, there were four companies and then Vivid was the fifth company and they told me that they... Do you know how the power of the panels?
Speaker: There are four...
Speaker: Okay, so you use 420 watt, so it's like very high end.
Speaker: Most companies are using 405.
Speaker: Use a lot of energy bills.
Speaker: Do you have your bill on you?
Speaker: Can you check the bill and they can pop back by?
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: You got a small army of children in there?
Speaker: No, I got, I rented my two rooms out.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is it cool if I shoot this over to my email?
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So what we do is basically take you out of the penalty system.
Speaker: So you got 11 cents, 11 cents, 12 cents, 12 cents, probably extra power.
Speaker: We eliminate that and it gets you right around like 12 to 15 cents.
Speaker: It'd be fixed, never goes up.
Speaker: And another thing is, unless he's seen something I don't know, I would steer away from giving too many specific details about numbers, about what you can get them until you actually run a proposal, until you sit down and plug in the bill and everything.
Speaker: Because I made this mistake far too many times.
Speaker: I'll tell a homeowner, oh, we can get you this or we can cut your bill in half.
Speaker: And then sometimes the roof is bad or sometimes they're not getting as much sun as I thought.
Speaker: The sun hours are low.
Speaker: Sometimes, yeah, they do need a panel upgrade, roof work done up there and we can't get them as much savings.
Speaker: So if I were this dude on the doors, I would I would steer away from saying, hey, because he already mentioned that they could lock him in at 204.
Speaker: Now he's throwing out other claims of what he can get him.
Speaker: So you're just going to shoot yourself in the foot sometimes if you offer them too much, then you can't deliver because they're already expecting something you better be able to deliver.
Speaker: Or the other thing that can happen is you offer them what you think is going to be great.
Speaker: And then in order to actually get them that, you give away all your commission and make next to nothing on the deal.
Speaker: because you got to live up to what you offered them.
Speaker: So don't make those mistakes.
Speaker: Don't tell them you're going to get them specific savings.
Speaker: You can give them a range, very general range, but I would never say a specific number or like an exact savings because it will come back to bite you.
Speaker: Okay, but for the most part, he's doing some pretty good things here.
Speaker: So you would save $100,000 pretty much over the next 20, 25 years.
Speaker: So it's a good deal.
Speaker: I'm glad I caught you right as we were out here because I'm meeting with the neighbor at 1130.
Speaker: Yeah, but I just sent this over.
Speaker: I'll build out the design and then we'll pop back by.
Speaker: You're going to be home in like an hour or two?
Speaker: Yeah, I'll go.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Well, bro, it was a pleasure meeting you.
Speaker: Thanks for the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you could have the Vivid proposal, I want to make sure they actually gave you the right usage because if you sat with four companies and they said they can only give you 70%,
Speaker: And then they were like, oh, yeah, 100%.
Speaker: I want to make sure we can actually do it.
Speaker: If we can't, I'll tell you straight up.
Speaker: That's exactly what I was told.
Speaker: All right, brother.
Speaker: I'll see you in like an hour or two.
Speaker: Okay, and so that's a wrap.
Speaker: He does a pretty good job about, you know, keeping it real, giving them a little bit of education.
Speaker: Another thing, when you are signing appointments, I would not just tell them, hey, an hour or two, make sure you set a specific time.
Speaker: In this case, they've already signed up.
Speaker: So maybe a little less important on making sure that all decision makers are going to be there because, I mean, they've already decided they're going to go slower.
Speaker: But ideally, you want to give an exact time when you're going to come back.
Speaker: like, you know, maybe 30 minute time window.
Speaker: But if you just say, oh, we'd be back in an hour or two, that just leaves it too open to where people are going to leave.
Speaker: You're going to come back.
Speaker: They're not there.
Speaker: So make sure you set specific time, set the expectations,
Speaker: of what's going to happen when you come back and then make sure you have all decision makers there, ideally.
Speaker: Okay, so we're not going to go through any more of this.
Speaker: If you want to go look up this video, we will post it in the show notes.
Speaker: I think starting at like 19 minutes or so, he goes back to this appointment.
Speaker: And spoiler alert, he does end up closing it from the video.
Speaker: But you'll hear a few, you know, few things that were a little bit misinformed.
Speaker: So hopefully those were corrected for this homeowner.
Speaker: Seems like a cool dude.
Speaker: But we want to make sure people are getting what they were promised.
Speaker: So yeah, those are the main takeaways from this.
Speaker: Make sure you record yourself when you are presenting.
Speaker: And not only can you do self analysis like this,
Speaker: But it's great if you ever have this is something that one of my reps told me today, actually, that I thought was smart.
Speaker: If you are ever following up with homeowners that maybe talked to six months ago, if you use a software, we use zero.
Speaker: You've heard me talk about it many times.
Speaker: This is the easiest and best way to get recordings of yourself.
Speaker: on the doors and make it as simple as possible.
Speaker: But if you use a software like Ciro, you can get the recordings, you can store them in folders and everything.
Speaker: And what's really nice about it is you can now listen to what you talk to the homeowner about.
Speaker: Say you're following up with the homeowner you talked to six months ago and go back to recording, hear how that interaction went.
Speaker: So great for getting context for maybe people you are following up with.
Speaker: Okay, so hopefully this helps someone.
Speaker: Make sure you are selling clean deals.
Speaker: Let's all level up the industry.
Speaker: Let's not misinform homeowners.
Speaker: It makes all of our jobs much harder.
Speaker: But yeah, if you see someone that does not have a good deal in solar, then...
Speaker: make sure you do get them a better opportunity, a better deal.
Speaker: But if you're going to switch them over, make sure you don't become the crooked competitor yourself.
Speaker: Because some things that were told this guy were not true.
Speaker: So he goes from one crooked competitor to maybe now not having the best deal either.
Speaker: So maybe we should all go switch this guy over, just show up at his house.
Speaker: But no, good content and shout out to Real Sales Dynamics.
Speaker: For the most part, they are putting out quality contents.
Speaker: I love those guys.
Speaker: So, you know, I've said many things that I was misinformed on in the past.
Speaker: So this kid, he does obviously know how to sell, but we all make mistakes and time to get better.
Speaker: Hope that helps.
Speaker: We'll see you guys on the next one.
Speaker: Please go leave a review if you have not before.
Speaker: And thank you for listening to the show.
Speaker: We'll see you next time.
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.
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.
