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How to Find the "Lay Down" Customers image

How to Find the "Lay Down" Customers

E189 ยท The Solarpreneur
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48 Plays4 years ago

Visit Solciety.co now!

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask 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 2 (00:41):

Hey, Hey, Hey, what's going on Solarpreneur? Taylor Armstrong back with another episode and as usual here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry. So before we jump into today's topic, have two little announcements and one's kind of an ask. So number one, we are launching our new Solciety app. It's going to be coming out. Um, it should already be on the Google play store for those weirdos that are still using Androids. You can probably actually go get it already if you want to check it out. And for the normal people, the iPhone users, um, you're going to have to wait a little bit, I guess that's the downside with apple. They're a little more strict when it comes to, uh, you know, approving apps. So anyways, we're going to be dropping an episode soon about what's going on with that, but just wanted to give you a teaser.

Speaker 2 (01:41):

If you're wanting to get first exclusive access to that, be checking the app store, go to the Solciety.co And you can get first access first dibs on what we're going on, what we got going on with the soul side of the app, but it's gonna feature, you know, top training, exclusive discounts and a whole lot of other things. So definitely go get on that. When you have the chance, then number two, I'm thinking about actually to start charging a price on the podcast. No worry it's not money, but what I mean by that, I've been listening to a lot of, uh, Andy Frisella, his podcast it's called real AF, highly recommended. Um, he talks about right now, you know, mostly just issues that are going on in the U S for all of our, uh, listeners here in the USA. Um, but he starts out almost every one of his podcasts.

Speaker 2 (02:37):

If you listen to it with an ask and that ask, is it instead of paying them money to listen to it, you go share it with a friend you post on social media. You, uh, I don't know, help promote it somehow. And that's his price for the podcast and he, this guy's, he's got, I think like number one, business podcasts in the world, and I'd go check. But one of the most popular podcasts doesn't advertise on it at all, which he's probably the only top podcast like that, that I listened to, that doesn't have ads on it. He could be making seven figures, easy a year, popping ads on that thing, but that's his. Is it? You just go out and share it with someone. You talk about it. So I'm like, maybe I should start making that ask on my podcast. So we're trying to grow the Solarpreneur movement.

Speaker 2 (03:28):

So I want to make the same as to you. If you got value from this episode or any of our previous episodes, please go send it to someone, help us spread the word. We're doing all this for free. And to be blunt, I know I could be selling probably an extra deal a week with the time I spend on the podcast, but I choose to spread some value and help my peeps close more deals, because that's what it's about. And it's helped with me. The more I share what I learned. I know I, I get a lot of value from that too, and connecting with other people. So it's not like I don't wan

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Transcript

Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast and Taylor's Journey

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.
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.

Launch of the SoulCity App

00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, hey, hey, what's going on solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong back with another episode, and as usual, here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better experience in the solar industry.
00:00:56
Speaker
So before we jump into today's topic, I have two little announcements.
00:01:02
Speaker
And one's kind of an ask.
00:01:04
Speaker
So number one, we are launching our new SoulCity app.
00:01:10
Speaker
It's going to be coming out.
00:01:12
Speaker
It should already be on the Google Play Store for those weirdos that are still using Androids.
00:01:17
Speaker
You can probably actually go get it already if you want to check it out.
00:01:21
Speaker
And for the normal people, the iPhone users, you're going to have to wait a little bit.
00:01:27
Speaker
I guess that's the downside with Apple.
00:01:29
Speaker
They're a little more strict.
00:01:31
Speaker
When it comes to, you know, approving apps.
00:01:34
Speaker
So anyways, we're going to be dropping an episode soon about what's going on with that.
00:01:38
Speaker
But just wanted to give you a teaser.
00:01:40
Speaker
If you wanted to get first exclusive access to that, be checking the app store.
00:01:45
Speaker
Go to the soulcidey.co and you can get first access, first dibs on what we got going on with the Soulcidey app.
00:01:55
Speaker
But it's going to feature, you know, top training, exclusive discounts and a whole lot of other things.
00:02:03
Speaker
So definitely go get on that when you have the chance.

Growing the Movement Without Ads

00:02:06
Speaker
Then number two, I'm thinking about actually to start charging a price on the podcast.
00:02:13
Speaker
No worry, it's not money.
00:02:15
Speaker
But what I mean by that, I've been listening to a lot of Andy Frisella's podcast.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's called Real AF, highly recommended.
00:02:24
Speaker
He talks about right now, you know, mostly just issues that are going on in the U.S. for all of our listeners here in the U.S.A.,
00:02:34
Speaker
But he starts out almost every one of his podcasts, if you listen to it, with an ask.
00:02:39
Speaker
And that ask is that instead of paying him money to listen to it, you go share it with a friend, you post on social media, you, I don't know, help promote it somehow, and
00:02:51
Speaker
That's his price for the podcast.
00:02:53
Speaker
This guy, he's got, I think, number one business podcast in the world.
00:02:59
Speaker
I'd have to go check, but one of the most popular podcasts.
00:03:02
Speaker
Doesn't advertise on it at all, which he's probably the only top podcast like that that I listen to that doesn't have ads on it.
00:03:11
Speaker
He could be making seven figures easy a year, popping ads on that thing.
00:03:16
Speaker
But that's his ask is that you just go out and share it with someone.
00:03:20
Speaker
You talk about it.
00:03:22
Speaker
So I'm like, maybe I should start making that ask on my podcast.
00:03:26
Speaker
So we're trying to grow the solar printer movement.
00:03:28
Speaker
So I want to make the same ask to you.
00:03:30
Speaker
If you got value from this episode or any of our previous episodes, please go send it to someone.
00:03:36
Speaker
Help us spread the word.
00:03:38
Speaker
We're doing all this for free.
00:03:40
Speaker
And to be blunt, I know I could be selling probably an extra deal a week with the time I spend on the podcast.
00:03:47
Speaker
But
00:03:48
Speaker
But I choose to spread some value and help my peeps close more deals because that's what it's about.
00:03:55
Speaker
And it's helping me the more I share what I learn.
00:03:57
Speaker
I know I get a lot of value from that too and connecting with other people.
00:04:02
Speaker
So it's not like I don't want to be doing this.
00:04:05
Speaker
But anyways, that's my ask.
00:04:06
Speaker
If you got value from this podcast, please go share it with someone.
00:04:11
Speaker
And as always, you can leave a review to you if you feel so inclined.
00:04:15
Speaker
So with that being said, let's jump into today's topic.

Strategies for Overcoming Sales Challenges

00:04:18
Speaker
And this topic comes from just last week's experience, just like a lot of episodes do.
00:04:26
Speaker
So what happened last week, I was having a rougher week up until Friday.
00:04:31
Speaker
So how many of you have had a tough week, you're just grinding it out, you're knocking lots of doors, you're calling lots of leads, referrals, whatnot, and you're not getting anything?
00:04:41
Speaker
And I don't know about you, but if Friday comes around and I haven't closed the deal, I start feeling a little sick inside.
00:04:47
Speaker
I'm like, man, I need to get at least a few deals closed this week.
00:04:51
Speaker
I've got nothing.
00:04:53
Speaker
So that's why if you can, get the deal closed early in the week.
00:04:56
Speaker
For me, it takes a lot of pressure off.
00:04:59
Speaker
knowing that I have a deal closed thing going to the weekend with some wins, if you will.
00:05:06
Speaker
But last week, I didn't have any wins, didn't have any closes.
00:05:09
Speaker
So I was getting a little stressed with it.
00:05:12
Speaker
I'm like, man, what's going on here?
00:05:13
Speaker
What do I need to do to get my few closes at least on the week?

Targeting Untapped Markets in Solar Sales

00:05:19
Speaker
And so here's what I did.
00:05:22
Speaker
I looked for the low-hanging fruit.
00:05:25
Speaker
What do I mean by that?
00:05:26
Speaker
I looked for deals that I thought would be a laydown.
00:05:29
Speaker
I've talked about this a little bit in the podcast.
00:05:33
Speaker
If you want to go back and listen to the podcast around when we have Lenny Gray, the Mr. Door-to-Door Millionaire on the show, we go into a few topics that have to do with this.
00:05:45
Speaker
Specifically in solar, what I mean is you go find people that potentially have not been talked to
00:05:52
Speaker
Hardly at all, if ever.
00:05:55
Speaker
And so I'm going to talk about how you do that.
00:05:58
Speaker
And especially here in San Diego and saturated markets, I think that's one of the keys to having success in these saturated markets is you got to look under the rocks for the deals.
00:06:10
Speaker
You got to look in all the hiding places for these homeowners and
00:06:14
Speaker
Because if you're just going to cookie cutter neighborhoods, knocking all the typical stuff, yeah, you can have success.
00:06:21
Speaker
But for me, I like to have success and be able to get more quality leads and not necessarily be sifting through, you know, 100 people that have been talked to 20 times, which sometimes is the case, especially here in San Diego.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:39
Speaker
Now, you might not have this issue as much if you're in newer markets.
00:06:45
Speaker
Maybe your issue there is just getting people to believe that solar works.
00:06:48
Speaker
But if you're in California, pretty much anywhere in California, you've got to be good at finding these people that have not heard as much about solar.
00:06:58
Speaker
The other benefit to this too, if you can find those people that haven't been hit up a million times about solar, that haven't really checked it out,
00:07:09
Speaker
then it's a lot easier to price the deals what you're worth.
00:07:12
Speaker
Okay, none of this, what drives me nuts is when a homeowner has 10 quotes already.
00:07:19
Speaker
Like, okay, price me at $2.50 a watt, I'll buy from you.
00:07:24
Speaker
Whatever, some ridiculous number.
00:07:26
Speaker
and they're just trying to drive the pricing to the bottom.
00:07:29
Speaker
Now we see you can still close those people, you just gotta build value, but I love it when I can just build value and not have to sit and pull teeth and fight on price.
00:07:41
Speaker
Makes it easier when you find these people that are quote unquote lay downs.
00:07:45
Speaker
So let's talk about how do you find these people?
00:07:48
Speaker
Some of this again is gonna sound familiar, but I'm gonna refresh your memory, and for those maybe you haven't heard this before,
00:07:55
Speaker
Okay, but number one thing is go off the beaten path.
00:07:58
Speaker
Okay, and I brought up Lenny Gray.
00:08:02
Speaker
If you haven't read his book yet, it's called More Door-to-Door Millionaire.
00:08:06
Speaker
He also has his Door-to-Door Millionaire original book, two books he wrote.
00:08:11
Speaker
And he has a section on this.
00:08:13
Speaker
The entire book is super valuable, so I definitely recommend you go check it out and buy it if you haven't already.
00:08:19
Speaker
But on page 114, if you have the book, he talks about...
00:08:25
Speaker
He calls this strategy off the beaten path.
00:08:29
Speaker
And just to kind of summarize it, he talks about how he was knocking with one of his rookie sales reps.
00:08:36
Speaker
And they were just hitting up this cookie cutter neighborhood.
00:08:40
Speaker
And every single person was like, hey, you're the third guy that's come by this week.
00:08:46
Speaker
And they were just getting hammered out there, not having success.
00:08:50
Speaker
So after, I don't know, an hour or something, he goes onto the main highway where obviously cars are speeding by and everything.
00:08:56
Speaker
And there's houses also along the main highway, but these are the houses that have the longer driveways that, um, maybe they had some, I don't know, farm animals out front, barns, whatever.
00:09:08
Speaker
They all had bigger properties, things like that.
00:09:11
Speaker
So he says, Hey man, let's go try these houses.
00:09:14
Speaker
So they go to these houses on the main highway instead of just talking to the cookie cutter neighborhood ones.
00:09:21
Speaker
And he says within 15 minutes, they are.
00:09:25
Speaker
So he said the first house, they sold that one.
00:09:28
Speaker
Then 15 minutes later, they sold the other one.
00:09:32
Speaker
And this was like, you know, just around the corner from this cookie cutter neighborhood.
00:09:36
Speaker
They'd have been knocking.
00:09:38
Speaker
The point of this is, and the point that he makes, is that sometimes you need to go the strategy of quality over quantity.
00:09:46
Speaker
And he calls this like the low hanging fruit.
00:09:50
Speaker
These people, they're not going to be talked to as much.
00:09:53
Speaker
You know what I'm talking about.
00:09:54
Speaker
If you go to any neighborhood where they have super long dryways, if there are more smaller towns, if they're super spread apart, all homes like these, they're way more likely to have been hit up a million times versus your cookie cutter neighborhoods.
00:10:12
Speaker
So that's the first strategy.
00:10:14
Speaker
Make sure when you're out knocking, and I know some people are with the bigger companies, maybe you're with the Sunruns, the Legacies, maybe you're assigned areas and you're not supposed to be knocking different places.
00:10:28
Speaker
But even if you're assigned an area, make sure you look for those houses that are spread apart.
00:10:34
Speaker
Try to look for houses where maybe they're tough to access.
00:10:39
Speaker
Maybe they have gates in front of them.
00:10:41
Speaker
I don't know.
00:10:42
Speaker
Just anything you can note, any clue you can pick up on that maybe it would have been tough for any other newbie sales rep or sales rep that hasn't been listening to the Solarpreneur podcast to get access to.
00:10:54
Speaker
So make sure you do that.
00:10:56
Speaker
So that's number one.

Utilizing Tools for Identifying Potential Clients

00:10:57
Speaker
Look for those houses that are off the beaten path.
00:10:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:00
Speaker
And tip number two, make sure you are conscious of new move-ins.
00:11:06
Speaker
It's another big strategy that I've implemented.
00:11:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:11
Speaker
And I didn't even finish my story at the beginning, but I was having a rough week when I started out.
00:11:17
Speaker
Like I said, didn't have anything on Friday.
00:11:18
Speaker
It's exactly what I did.
00:11:21
Speaker
I went to a place where I didn't think many people would have knocked yet.
00:11:26
Speaker
And sure enough, booked like one out of every three people I talked to in this neighborhood.
00:11:32
Speaker
Okay, it was a condo slash townhome neighborhood.
00:11:35
Speaker
That's another thing that's I would classify in the off the beaten path.
00:11:40
Speaker
And depending on your area, depending on what state you're knocking in, maybe like shared roof spaces or condos, townhomes, maybe they're not allowed to get solar.
00:11:50
Speaker
I don't know.
00:11:51
Speaker
You'd have to look at what the regulations and all that in your state.
00:11:54
Speaker
But here in California, you can basically put solar on anything, even if it has a shared roof space.
00:12:02
Speaker
So keep that in mind.
00:12:04
Speaker
These like places that maybe even look like apartment complex, sometimes these places are townhomes or condos.
00:12:12
Speaker
So be wary of that and make sure you're paying attention.
00:12:14
Speaker
And that's another, I would say, classification that's off the beaten path.
00:12:18
Speaker
Okay, and then the second point,
00:12:22
Speaker
First was, sorry to finish my story, I ended up closing two last week on Friday and Saturday.
00:12:31
Speaker
Knock on those townhomes.
00:12:32
Speaker
But lay down sales, low hanging fruit.
00:12:36
Speaker
And then the second point that I was getting into before I started rambling there was make sure you're conscious of the new move ins.
00:12:45
Speaker
I've talked about this multiple times as well on the show here, but make sure you're going on to Zillow.
00:12:51
Speaker
Make your spreadsheet of your new move-ins.
00:12:54
Speaker
And if you're assigned an area, go look up all the new people that moved in.
00:12:58
Speaker
This is a way you can target those people.
00:13:00
Speaker
You can bring up specifics in your door approach.
00:13:05
Speaker
And hey, we're just letting all the new move ins know what's going on in the neighborhood.
00:13:08
Speaker
You guys you probably didn't hear yet.
00:13:10
Speaker
You guys just moved in, right?
00:13:11
Speaker
Because what's super cool is you can see literally when people moved into their house right on Zillow.
00:13:18
Speaker
And I know there's a lot of other apps.
00:13:21
Speaker
to put some in the show notes, but there's apps you can get that realtors use where you can see like way more data than this.
00:13:28
Speaker
You can see like if it's something to trust, the homes, like who's on the title of the home, things like that.
00:13:35
Speaker
You know, there's a couple paid apps out there.
00:13:38
Speaker
Make sure you're doing that.
00:13:39
Speaker
And the best reps I know in the industry are using this strategy.
00:13:46
Speaker
They're going, of course, they're going to go like train reps and cookie cutter neighborhoods.
00:13:50
Speaker
They're going to knock and cookie cutter neighborhoods themselves, but they're mixing it up.
00:13:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:55
Speaker
Some days they're going to just the new move ins and going to all those.
00:14:00
Speaker
And if you're doing this strategy, make sure you're knocking around the new move ins to you.
00:14:05
Speaker
You don't want to be driving for miles and then only knock one door.
00:14:09
Speaker
I would suggest knocking all the way around, you know, the two neighbors on the side, then the three neighbors across the street, minimum.
00:14:17
Speaker
And hopefully you have a name to drop where you can bring up the fact that you're letting the people or and say, hey, do you know the people just moved in next door?
00:14:26
Speaker
It's a good opener for their neighbors.
00:14:30
Speaker
But anyways, so the top guys are using all these strategies.
00:14:33
Speaker
They're going to the off the beaten path.
00:14:36
Speaker
They're doing the cookie cutter neighborhoods and then they're doing

Opportunities in Solar Upselling

00:14:40
Speaker
the new move ins.
00:14:40
Speaker
OK, and then the last point with all this is target the homes that already have solar to guess what?
00:14:49
Speaker
Especially here in San Diego, in California, there's a lot of homes that have had solar for a long time.
00:14:55
Speaker
A lot of these people are getting huge true bills where their solar is not covering everything they're using for their energy.
00:15:04
Speaker
So be conscious of that.
00:15:05
Speaker
Make sure you're knocking these homes, especially if, you know, maybe they have a pool or maybe if it just seems like, okay, this house is huge.
00:15:14
Speaker
They should have more than 10 panels up there.
00:15:16
Speaker
Especially those homes, knock them, because you're going to get lots of people that either, number one, they're being super conservative still because they don't want to have those huge true-up bills, or number two, they're paying huge true-up bills to the utility that's not being covered.
00:15:33
Speaker
And these people, they already have solar.
00:15:35
Speaker
You don't have to sell them on the idea of solar.
00:15:37
Speaker
You just have to sell them on adding more panels, which is usually a super lay-down, low-hanging fruit sale.
00:15:46
Speaker
So that's the three tips, guys.
00:15:48
Speaker
Make sure you're knocking off the beaten path, including condos and townhomes, depending on, you know, which state you're in and the laws and regulations around that.
00:15:59
Speaker
Number two, make sure you're knocking the new move-ins.
00:16:02
Speaker
And even if you're assigned areas, make sure you're looking those up and being aware of who maybe just moved in.
00:16:09
Speaker
Then number three, make sure you're also knocking the true-up systems, the people that already have solar.
00:16:16
Speaker
And another thing out here in California, all the new homes have to be built with solar.
00:16:22
Speaker
So for us Californians, that's another strategy that our team has implemented.
00:16:27
Speaker
Go to those homes that are being built with solar because none of these homes that are being built with the systems already are sized to what the homeowners are using.
00:16:37
Speaker
So if you can find that out, you can go and look at this data.
00:16:40
Speaker
You can see how long people have been in the home and you can target maybe the people that just moved in, but also keep in mind, target the people that have been there for a year.
00:16:50
Speaker
Because the new move-ins, that's typically the one objection they have is that, oh, Taylor, yeah, we don't want to do it.
00:16:55
Speaker
We want to see what we're using in the home.
00:16:58
Speaker
So in that case, make sure you're keeping these people in your follow-up list.
00:17:02
Speaker
And then also targeting people that have been in their homes, you know, six months to a year because they do have some data on what their electric usage history is.
00:17:12
Speaker
So that's what helped me this last week.
00:17:14
Speaker
That's how you can turn a bad week into a good one as well.
00:17:17
Speaker
Make sure you're mixing it up.
00:17:19
Speaker
Go after that low-hanging fruit.
00:17:21
Speaker
But more importantly, just make sure to grind because even if you're going after the low-hanging fruit, that's not an excuse to work less.
00:17:29
Speaker
And I'll be honest, sometimes I've gotten a couple deals from that and I've not worked as many hours as I should have.
00:17:38
Speaker
So make sure if you're using these strategies, use them with responsibility.
00:17:42
Speaker
Work just as hard as if you're grinding out in a cookie cutter neighborhood and you're only booking one out of every 10 appointments.
00:17:49
Speaker
Because if you keep that same mindset, that's how you're going to have a lot more success is doing a combination of these strategies.
00:17:57
Speaker
So I hope that helps.
00:17:59
Speaker
Go share it with someone that could use the tips that's having a slower week.
00:18:03
Speaker
Get out there and close some deals.
00:18:05
Speaker
We will see you on the next episode.

Introducing SoulCity Learning Community

00:18:08
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:18:10
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.
00:18:20
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.
00:18:32
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.
00:18:43
Speaker
And it's called Solcitee.
00:18:45
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.
00:19:04
Speaker
Currently, SoulCity is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:19:10
Speaker
So go to SoulCity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:19:18
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to SoulCity.co and join.
00:19:25
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.