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97: Email Marketing in Your Solar Sales - Phabion Royal
155 Plays6 years ago
PHAIBION ROYAL
Learn how to generate sales and get more leads through email marketing with powerhouse entrepreneur, Phaibion Royal.
Website: https://royalenergy.co/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhaibionRoyal/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phaibion-royal-commercial-solar-lead-generation-expert/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phaibion_royal/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoyalEnergy_
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc7OQ8L3ADfWNO99w8hvGVw
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Transcript
Introduction to Email Marketing in Solar
00:00:01
Speaker
What's going on, Solarpreneurs?
00:00:02
Speaker
It's your host, Taylor Armstrong here.
00:00:04
Speaker
This episode is a little unique because we talk specifically about email marketing in solar.
00:00:11
Speaker
I've had a lot of marketing experts on, but no one really has talked specifically about email marketing.
00:00:19
Speaker
So I know you're going to love this episode.
00:00:20
Speaker
It's with Fabian Royale.
00:00:23
Speaker
He's the first guy we've had on from another country.
00:00:26
Speaker
and he's crushing it with commercial online legion using specifically email marketing.
00:00:32
Speaker
Enjoy the episode, and let's jump into the intro.
Who are Solopreneurs?
00:00:35
Speaker
What do you call an underground group of solar professionals on a mission to create a more sustainable world?
00:00:41
Speaker
We call ourselves solopreneurs.
00:00:43
Speaker
And while some might call us crazy, foolish, and dissatisfied with the status quo, we're the ones taking action to create a better future for ourselves and the world.
00:00:53
Speaker
Solopreneur is dedicated to give you, the solar professional, the tools, skills, technology, and mentorship to take the industry by storm and sell more solar with less effort.
00:01:05
Speaker
We are solopreneurs and this is our story.
00:01:35
Speaker
What do you call an underground group of solar professionals on a mission to create a more sustainable world?
00:01:41
Speaker
We call ourselves solarpreneurs.
00:01:43
Speaker
And while some might call us crazy, foolish, and dissatisfied with the status quo, we're the ones taking action to create a better future for ourselves and the world.
00:01:53
Speaker
Solarpreneur is dedicated to give you, the solar professional, the tools, skills, technology, and mentorship to take the industry by storm and sell more solar with less effort.
00:02:05
Speaker
We are solopreneurs and this is our story.
Fabian Royale's Journey to Solar
00:02:10
Speaker
What's going on solopreneurs?
00:02:11
Speaker
I'm excited to have another episode because for a couple of reasons, we've got someone for the first time, I think, on the show from a different country.
00:02:21
Speaker
We've got Fabian from the UK.
00:02:24
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Fabian.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much, Taylor.
00:02:29
Speaker
It's a pleasure to be on here and I'm really grateful to have connected with you and be the first person from the UK, really.
00:02:36
Speaker
It's great.
00:02:37
Speaker
Heck yeah.
00:02:38
Speaker
And yeah, I'm stoked for a couple of reasons.
00:02:40
Speaker
Number one, because Fabian has some sweet stuff to share on what he's doing over there for...
00:02:46
Speaker
for a legion and specifically commercial legion there across the pond.
00:02:51
Speaker
But the other reason, I mean, I mean, come on, you gotta love that accent.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:57
Speaker
I mean, especially for us Americans.
00:03:00
Speaker
Got all of that.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:02
Speaker
And his last name is Royal.
00:03:04
Speaker
So it doesn't get much better than that.
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:07
Speaker
I'm in a pretty unique situation, I guess.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:11
Speaker
And your legion company is called a Royal energy, right?
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
I wanted to keep it in line with the rest of the energy companies out there.
00:03:20
Speaker
So yeah, Royal Energy kind of fits.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, with that last name, you got to have something Royal in there.
00:03:28
Speaker
I actually have a buddy that owns a pest control company and he calls that Royalty Pest Control.
00:03:35
Speaker
Nice.
00:03:35
Speaker
It would work out a lot better if his last name was Royal too, but he didn't get that blessing.
00:03:42
Speaker
I can see how the word Royalty...
00:03:45
Speaker
Adds that element of, you know, specialism.
00:03:48
Speaker
For sure.
Challenges in the UK Solar Market
00:03:49
Speaker
So Fabian, yeah, we're going to do some deep diving on what you're doing with Commercial Legion.
00:03:55
Speaker
And he does a ton with like outreaching companies, doing a cold email, stuff like that.
00:04:01
Speaker
So we're going to hear all about it.
00:04:03
Speaker
But tell us first, Fabian, kind of how you got in the solar industry and maybe what you're doing before that and what led you to getting into the solar industry.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:12
Speaker
So I guess I could start from the beginning, really.
00:04:15
Speaker
I mean, not from when I was born, but from the beginning of my sort of corporate career.
00:04:20
Speaker
So I'm an aircraft electrician by trade.
00:04:24
Speaker
You know, so I went through, went through school, went through college, got my qualifications, did a little bit of aircraft work.
00:04:30
Speaker
I've worked for sort of like Rolls Royce and Airbus and Boeing and, you know, most of the major aircraft manufacturing companies.
00:04:38
Speaker
And I know this is a slightly off topic, but I think it's relevant because
00:04:42
Speaker
The reason why I really started my career as an entrepreneur is because I got sick of working away from home during 60 to 70 hours a week away from my family and friends and the people that I care about.
00:04:54
Speaker
So I really decided to look for ways to generate an income from home and online, really.
00:05:02
Speaker
So I started a B2B marketing agency around five years ago called Royal Marketing Management.
00:05:10
Speaker
and we were serving the B2B industry on the whole.
00:05:14
Speaker
So, you know, we started off working with sort of like software development companies, other marketing agencies, business coaches, consultants, you name it, we've done it from a B2B standpoint.
00:05:26
Speaker
But I got sick of wearing, you know, many different hats, you know, one day I'll be wearing the software development hat, then the next day I'll be wearing
00:05:34
Speaker
you know, marketing agency hat.
00:05:36
Speaker
And I never was really able to generate the results that I wanted to generate in my life because I wasn't laser focused on something that I really enjoyed.
00:05:45
Speaker
So fast forward to sort of like three years ago, I fell on the commercial solar industry and I fell in love with it because I
00:05:56
Speaker
I feel like I'm serving a greater cause in helping and doing my part in reducing the carbon footprint of the planet.
00:06:03
Speaker
So I feel like I'm doing something that isn't just the case of, okay, so I'm delivering a service to a business and taking a fee for it.
00:06:10
Speaker
I feel like I'm delivering a service that actually contributes to something bigger and then taking a, you know, a reward, a fee for it.
00:06:19
Speaker
So it just sits with me really well in terms of being able to be that focal point that liaises with my clients target market to be able to secure qualified meetings to talk about, you know, reducing that carbon footprint, reducing those energy bills, cutting those costs, you know, so that's why I really, really love what I do.
00:06:38
Speaker
I hope that answers your question.
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:06:41
Speaker
No, that's awesome.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's why we all, I think, love solars because it just should be pretty much a no-brainer product.
00:06:47
Speaker
I mean, especially in my market here in California, like people are going to save 50, 100 grand, $100,000, you know, over 20, 30 years.
00:06:55
Speaker
So it makes a ton of sense financially.
00:06:57
Speaker
And then...
00:07:00
Speaker
like you said, reducing the carbon footprint.
00:07:03
Speaker
So I think it's no brainer as far as those reasons go.
00:07:07
Speaker
But tell us a little bit, Fabian, about the market there.
00:07:10
Speaker
Most of our listeners are, you know, in the U.S. and everything.
00:07:13
Speaker
But what's it like, the solar in the U.K.?
00:07:17
Speaker
Is it really cost effective for people?
00:07:19
Speaker
And is it done a
Innovation During COVID-19 in Solar
00:07:21
Speaker
lot residentially too?
00:07:22
Speaker
I know you're doing commercial, but what's like the market and stuff like that over there?
00:07:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:27
Speaker
So it's a great question.
00:07:28
Speaker
So it's profitable for businesses on the residential side and the commercial side and for the end users.
00:07:38
Speaker
But it's been quite a tough market over the last few years because on both the residential and commercial side, there's no government grants.
00:07:47
Speaker
So it's been quite a difficult sell.
00:07:50
Speaker
So from a commercial standpoint, we've really transitioned all of our clients into selling products
00:07:56
Speaker
PPAs.
00:07:57
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of clients out there that also do the capex stuff.
00:08:02
Speaker
But to get the foot in the door and generate the initial conversation, we're offering a zero money upfront solution.
00:08:12
Speaker
And we're doing that sort of globally, not just in the UK, but I think it's the best USP that we can use to crack the UK market, given the fact that the government aren't helping us out at the moment.
00:08:26
Speaker
yeah yeah for sure yeah it is been out here we still have some of the um you know government rebates things like that um did that exist in the past in the uk did they used to have some rebates yes we used to have a feeding tariff and stuff like that and uh we used to have grants but it was never sort of like 30 percent
00:08:48
Speaker
The opportunity that US businesses and Australian businesses have got is that the government are putting huge backing behind it.
00:08:56
Speaker
I think the UK has never had larger than a 15% help with it.
00:09:04
Speaker
So yeah, it's always been a tough sell and the weather isn't as great.
00:09:07
Speaker
So we've had to really look at our technology and software solutions and the equipment we use to be able to get the result that our clients are looking for.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
I know you're just talking about before this, you're saying you hope the rain stops and everything.
00:09:22
Speaker
And I guess it's raining like all the time out there, right?
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:30
Speaker
That's a huge difference too, because I'm in San Diego, California, and we got sun nonstop out here.
00:09:35
Speaker
Heard the ever rains.
00:09:37
Speaker
I can imagine that's another factor with it.
00:09:42
Speaker
But yeah, with the rebates, you might know, but here in the U.S., it is tapering down for us too.
00:09:51
Speaker
Next year it's supposed to go to, yeah, 26%.
00:09:54
Speaker
Next year, I think it goes to 21% or 22%, and then it ends after that.
00:09:59
Speaker
So it's probably going to be something similar that you guys went through.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:03
Speaker
you know, same thing when your grants and stuff ended, did you see a lot of people like step out of the market when that happened or a lot of people getting into other industries?
00:10:13
Speaker
A lot of people, a lot of people getting into other industries.
00:10:17
Speaker
Um, a lot of people stepping out of the market, um, simply just because they didn't find a way to innovate and get in front of their market properly and perhaps think, well, we still know, we still know that solar is a viable solution.
00:10:32
Speaker
How do we position our products and services to get in the door, you know?
00:10:38
Speaker
So that's really why I started what I do.
00:10:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:42
Speaker
And Fabian and I were just talking before the recording started, just kind of how important with that points, just how important it is to innovate.
00:10:51
Speaker
Because with the whole coronavirus shutdown, I was just saying we've had so many, I've heard from so many people that were knocking and that was their only source of legion.
00:11:01
Speaker
And now when the coronavirus hit, so many people weren't able to knock, at least knock as much.
00:11:07
Speaker
And then I heard even companies just, you know, basically shutting down, not doing any installs, anything.
00:11:13
Speaker
I think that's the important of like you're saying, just innovating in whatever happens.
00:11:18
Speaker
If the tax credit ends, if you're not even on the knock doors, you always got to be looking for ways to innovate.
00:11:23
Speaker
Cause at the end of the day, I think those are the companies that are going to be still standing.
00:11:28
Speaker
The ones that don't innovate shut down.
00:11:30
Speaker
Right.
00:11:31
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:11:32
Speaker
You know, when you think about it, I don't know if you have this chain of a company in the UK, but we have in the US, sorry, we have Toys R Us.
00:11:39
Speaker
They were one of the major toy manufacturers.
00:11:42
Speaker
And when the e-commerce industry boomed, Toys R Us didn't decide to take their products online.
00:11:50
Speaker
So they shut down in the UK and
00:11:52
Speaker
You know, it's the same principle in solar.
00:11:54
Speaker
If you don't, you know, in my opinion, if your business isn't online, you know, as frank as this might sound, you probably haven't got a business in the next few years, you know, you know, everybody's hanging out online, you know.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:12:10
Speaker
Definitely.
00:12:11
Speaker
So Fabian, let's
Royal Energy's Global Team Structure
00:12:13
Speaker
transition.
00:12:13
Speaker
Let's hear about as far as your agency goes.
00:12:17
Speaker
So do you have a team with you?
00:12:20
Speaker
How many people do you have on your team that are running the agency with you?
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
So initially, you know, like with any business, I started doing everything myself until I got sort of like, you know, 10, 15, 20 clients.
00:12:32
Speaker
And it was like, wow, I need to employ a lead generation team.
00:12:35
Speaker
I need to employ a appointment setting team.
00:12:38
Speaker
So
00:12:38
Speaker
to answer your question, I've got a lead generation team.
00:12:42
Speaker
Um, I've got one guy that heads up a team of about five people.
00:12:45
Speaker
Um, and I've got an appointment setting team.
00:12:48
Speaker
I've got one woman called Maricel and she heads up a team of about six appointment setters as well, all on different time zones because, you know, cause we do this globally.
00:12:57
Speaker
So we've got a team of appointment setters in the U S a team of appointment setters in Australia.
00:13:03
Speaker
team of appointment setters in the UK as well.
00:13:06
Speaker
The only market that we haven't tapped into yet is Canada.
00:13:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:10
Speaker
The grants aren't so great in Canada at the moment.
00:13:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:15
Speaker
So would you say most of your clients are in the UK or quite a few in the US or just?
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a good mix.
00:13:23
Speaker
It's a good mix.
00:13:24
Speaker
To be honest with you, I started in the US.
00:13:27
Speaker
I didn't start with the UK.
00:13:28
Speaker
I started in the US because I knew that there was 30% government grants available.
00:13:37
Speaker
which would make it an easier sell and then I moved into Australia so I've kind of I've kind of done it backwards really to be honest with you like over the last year or so I've focused on the UK a little bit but I started in the US and Australia first yeah so okay interesting you started in your home got into your homeland going pretty much last of all yeah yeah okay
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:14:02
Speaker
That's funny.
00:14:04
Speaker
Uh, no, it's yeah, obviously it's easier in some markets with the grants and everything.
00:14:09
Speaker
And I think I might ask you this before Fabian, but, um, you guys do just basically all commercial.
00:14:14
Speaker
How come you guys don't do a residential as well as commercial?
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:14:20
Speaker
So, um, um, we've, we've made some changes, uh, since me and you last spoke, actually, we've actually partnered with a, um, a company.
00:14:30
Speaker
um, called solar exclusive, um, that specifically do residential.
00:14:35
Speaker
Um, and the reason why we didn't start off doing residential is because we didn't want to spread ourselves too thin.
00:14:41
Speaker
Um, you know, we wanted to focus on the commercial solar market, get really good at it.
00:14:45
Speaker
You know, I'm a firm believer in mastering one thing and then moving on to the next.
00:14:50
Speaker
Whereas like most agencies, they're doing SEO, they're doing web development, they're doing Facebook ads, they're doing YouTube ads, they're doing cold email and they're not a master of anything.
00:14:59
Speaker
So I wanted to master this outreach within the commercial solar market and then look at avenues to go down to be able to serve the residential market as well.
00:15:10
Speaker
So I hope that answers your question.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, no, it makes sense.
00:15:16
Speaker
And like you said, it's good to specialize in something.
00:15:18
Speaker
You have kind of your unique niche that you're doing.
00:15:21
Speaker
And obviously a lot of people are already doing residential lead gen and everything.
00:15:27
Speaker
So I think it definitely helps you guys stand out.
00:15:30
Speaker
And one of the things I wondered too, I know there's other companies doing business.
Ensuring High-Quality Leads
00:15:35
Speaker
commercial legion what do you what would you say that you guys are doing different that set you apart from other companies that are doing commercial let me give you a bit of a background and um this is one of the questions that i was most excited about answering to be honest okay it's a question it's a question that i get a lot so when i first started well before i decided to roll um this product out into the commercial solar sector
00:16:01
Speaker
I was already doing cold email anyway for myself.
00:16:04
Speaker
It was my primary source of getting leads for my business.
00:16:07
Speaker
But before I rolled it out into the commercial solar market, I spoke with at least 20 to 30 decision makers on a global scale and asked them what their problems were with the business.
00:16:20
Speaker
commercial solar marketing agencies and lead providers that came before.
00:16:24
Speaker
And one of the main things that I used to hear was the lead quality.
00:16:29
Speaker
Another thing that I always used to hear was, you know, people would over promise and under deliver.
00:16:36
Speaker
And then another thing that I used to hear is that people would over promise and then not deliver at all.
00:16:40
Speaker
So then I dive deeper into that and I would ask questions like, OK, so who are you?
00:16:45
Speaker
Who are your ideal clients?
00:16:47
Speaker
You know what?
00:16:48
Speaker
What research would we need to do?
00:16:51
Speaker
to be able to qualify these people as a lead before even putting them on our list of potentials before even going out there and doing the web research to find the decision maker email address so to answer your question what helps us stand out from the rest of the market is that we can actually be bothered to do the research and the reason why companies don't do it is because all of this research has to be done manually
00:17:17
Speaker
when you think about it, you know.
00:17:18
Speaker
Okay, so we probably know through having a conversation with our clients, we know what industries they want to target, you know, for example, manufacturers, food processors, all of that good stuff, right?
00:17:29
Speaker
But from a owner-occupied building standpoint,
00:17:32
Speaker
you've got to manually trawl public records to find out who owns the building and if the building owner occupies the building.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then you've got to go into using things that we can use on the internet like Google Maps
00:17:50
Speaker
and actually typing in manufacturer in Los Angeles, pulling up all of the companies and manually zooming in on all of the rooftops and having a look at which ones are a good fit for solar, which ones don't have solar.
00:18:02
Speaker
So there's all of this background research process that happens in the background, which is why I've got a team of lead generation specialists that go and do all of this on a manual basis.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
To answer your question, it's making sure that before even selecting these companies from Google Maps, it's taking that list of companies that you've generated, making sure that the building is owner-occupied, then actually zooming in on the company's roof on Google Maps, making sure it doesn't have a solar system installed already.
00:18:35
Speaker
Making sure that the roof doesn't have anything on it that's going to obstruct you or make the solar installation difficult.
00:18:41
Speaker
adding them to the list and then thinking about right now we've done all of this process to add them to the list make sure they're a good fit let's go and find the decision maker email addresses and that's a whole other story yeah yeah
00:18:53
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:54
Speaker
I didn't realize there's that much work and that much effort goes into it.
00:18:58
Speaker
Like residential, we're, you know, we're just a lot of times getting dropped off in a neighborhood and just hitting some doors.
00:19:04
Speaker
But yeah, you guys are hardcore background research to find out, you know, who decision makers are.
00:19:11
Speaker
So it's pretty awesome.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:13
Speaker
It's it's one other thing I want to mention is that most companies,
00:19:19
Speaker
they'll go and buy a list from a so-called verified B2B data provider from Google and then send an email blast out to a list that all of the other commercial solar companies have used before that's now saturated and out of date.
00:19:33
Speaker
So if there's anybody listening that is in the commercial niche that's doing stuff like that, stop buying lists on Google.
00:19:40
Speaker
Stop buying lists from B2B data providers and build your own in the way that I've just said, you know?
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:46
Speaker
That's cool.
00:19:47
Speaker
And is there people that do this themselves, Fabian?
00:19:50
Speaker
Have you heard anyone else doing this?
00:19:53
Speaker
Or do they all talk to you?
00:19:55
Speaker
Is there commercial solar companies that are already doing stuff like this?
00:19:59
Speaker
You're kind of the only one as far as you know.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah, not really.
00:20:02
Speaker
When I speak with commercial solar businesses, it's the first time that they've really heard that someone's actually willing to go and do that length of work.
00:20:12
Speaker
You know, as far as other commercial solar marketing agencies go, based on the research that I've done,
00:20:19
Speaker
when you go to the websites, most of them say they do commercial solar lead gen, but then there's no real service on there.
00:20:29
Speaker
Like they're ranking for it on Google, but there's no real evidence that they've actually done it and delivered results for clients.
00:20:37
Speaker
Simply just because if you aren't doing the research, if you aren't prepared to do the research, you aren't going to be able to deliver the results.
00:20:46
Speaker
It's all about the background research.
00:20:48
Speaker
I'm a firm believer in sometimes, actually the majority of the time, the long way around is often the short way around.
00:20:57
Speaker
yeah yeah so you've got to do the research you know otherwise your campaigns are just going to suck you know for example from an email standpoint you found that you've done all the background research on the companies okay you know they're only occupied they know you know they don't have a solar system installed already you know the the roof space is good let's say the roof space was a minimum of 50 000 square feet so you've got all of that information the next step is to find the decision maker email address
00:21:24
Speaker
So in regards to buying a list from Google, how do you know that list is even verified?
00:21:30
Speaker
What we do is we do the web research and use some of the tools that we'll talk about a little bit later on to identify the format of the company's email addresses.
00:21:41
Speaker
For example, we use one tool called hunter.io.
00:21:45
Speaker
We plug the company domain into it, and this is a free tool that anybody can use that's listening.
00:21:50
Speaker
You can go Google it now, hunter.io.
00:21:53
Speaker
Copy and paste the company's domain name into the search bar within Hunter.
00:22:00
Speaker
And it will tell you what the main format of the email address is for that company.
00:22:06
Speaker
So, you know, you know exactly, you know, let's say it was first name at solarenergyworld.com.
00:22:13
Speaker
And if John was a CEO, then I'm probably going to be 90% sure that john at solarenergyworld.com is going to be the email address to use.
00:22:23
Speaker
And then from there, we further verify it by actually sending a blank email to all of the email addresses that we pulled to make sure it doesn't bounce.
00:22:31
Speaker
And we know that the inbox is valid.
00:22:32
Speaker
So, you know, there's a lot of work that we do to make sure this process works, which is why, quite frankly, I say it humbly, we are the best at it.
00:22:41
Speaker
You know, I say it humbly.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, I don't doubt that.
00:22:44
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:22:46
Speaker
Not much work goes into it.
00:22:48
Speaker
And how much of your team, baby, your appointment setters, are they the ones that are doing a lot of this or what?
00:22:54
Speaker
Like who looks at the roof and everything?
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah, so it's my lead generation specialists that do that.
00:23:00
Speaker
So they do all of the background research, build the list of potentials and then go out there and then find the decision maker email addresses.
00:23:09
Speaker
And my appointment setters are the people that manage all of the replies that come in, manage all of the CRMs and manage all of the booking calendars.
00:23:18
Speaker
So what you're essentially getting is a full lead generation system that puts qualified appointments,
00:23:26
Speaker
on your calendar without you actually having to do anything.
00:23:30
Speaker
That's what we wanted to do.
00:23:33
Speaker
I'm not speaking about something that I don't do every day for myself.
00:23:38
Speaker
For example, I emailed you and we're on this call because of the email that I sent you.
00:23:43
Speaker
So if I didn't have any skills in terms of being able to email people in a way that triggers a phone call conversation, then my company wouldn't exist.
00:23:51
Speaker
So what I'm selling is something that I'm practicing every single day in my personal life and in my business life.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:23:59
Speaker
I mean, when you reached out, and I know I asked you before, but I'm like, what the, how did he get my company email?
00:24:05
Speaker
Because, I mean, I don't think I have my company email listed.
00:24:10
Speaker
It was difficult to find.
00:24:11
Speaker
It was difficult to find, believe me.
00:24:13
Speaker
So I get an email from Fabian, he's talking about the podcast.
00:24:16
Speaker
I'm like, I don't know how you got my email, but yeah, sure, let's talk.
00:24:21
Speaker
And then he starts explaining to me all this stuff.
00:24:23
Speaker
And I'm like, man, if you figured out how to get my email, then
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah, I don't, I'll definitely chat with you because no one's ever had access to that.
00:24:32
Speaker
I mean, I've had people, you know, hit me up on Facebook and everything, but somehow he, he gets my personal email.
00:24:37
Speaker
I'm like, well, okay, this definitely got my attention.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:42
Speaker
And, you know, and just touching on the email itself, it was something that was relevant to you.
00:24:47
Speaker
You know, it was personal and it articulated what, you know, what I wanted the result to be, which is why we're having this conversation now, you know, and that's the expertise.
00:24:56
Speaker
that I have in being able to transfer those skills into the commercial solar market, you know, clearly articulating the value proposition, showcasing and demonstrating proof of results based on the case studies that our clients have generated from past and present clients, and then giving them a clear call to action on what the next best step is to be able to have a conversation about reducing companies' energy bills.
00:25:21
Speaker
It's really quite simple.
00:25:23
Speaker
People overcomplicate it, to be honest.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:25:27
Speaker
So when you got my email, were you following like the same process that you're talking about, like sending out blank emails and seeing
Crafting Effective Emails
00:25:34
Speaker
which ones go through?
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah, yes.
00:25:35
Speaker
So it's the exact same process, you know, I didn't, I was pretty confident that, you know, because you don't have a lot of people, a lot of email addresses assigned to your company domain.
00:25:46
Speaker
I was pretty confident that it would have been, you know, Taylor.
00:25:49
Speaker
So yeah, so we're,
00:25:51
Speaker
You know, I was pretty confident about that.
00:25:53
Speaker
But the exact same process, you know, did a bit of research on you, plugged your domain into one of our software solutions to guess the format of the email address.
00:26:01
Speaker
And here we are.
00:26:04
Speaker
So we just do that on a massive scale for commercial solar companies, which is why it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of resources.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:12
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:26:12
Speaker
That's cool.
00:26:13
Speaker
So yeah, let's dig in.
00:26:14
Speaker
I want to hear some more specifics about like, you know, types of emails you guys are sending.
00:26:19
Speaker
And we have a lot of listeners that, like I told you off the camera too, that are doing residential solar.
00:26:27
Speaker
So hopefully we'll get some tips for guys, even things that guys can apply in residential solar.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:35
Speaker
especially like emails you're sending.
00:26:37
Speaker
And I know right now that's been huge, obviously with the coronavirus, I'm sure you're busier than ever with people wanting to do the email lead gen, probably changing up your message a little bit too, I would imagine just during the whole situation.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:52
Speaker
So yeah, let's talk about as far as like the emails you're sending, what are you actually sending to these people to get them to listen to you and respond?
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
So before we even actually talk about sending the email, there's more research that happens.
00:27:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:09
Speaker
So let's see.
00:27:10
Speaker
So let's say we are, um, and this is what we actually do.
00:27:14
Speaker
So from a commercial solar market standpoint, we're reaching out to the CEO, CFO, COO, sustainability and procurement offices, depending upon the size of the company.
00:27:24
Speaker
Sometimes it might be the managing director, the ops director, the finance director, et cetera, et cetera.
00:27:29
Speaker
Right.
00:27:29
Speaker
So,
00:27:30
Speaker
let's say we've got John Smith and he's the financial director of a food processing company.
00:27:35
Speaker
We will then research John Smith on LinkedIn or his other social media profiles to find snippets of relevant information that we can use to personalize the email.
00:27:46
Speaker
So let's say John Smith, let's say John Smith recently got a reward, an award for being one of the best finance or ops directors in his market.
00:27:58
Speaker
And he posted that on social media.
00:28:00
Speaker
So we would say, Hey, John, saw you won an award recently for being the best finance or ops guy in your sector and wanted to say congrats on the success.
00:28:11
Speaker
So immediately you've differentiated yourself from the competition because you've personalized the first line of the email before you've even dropped into what it is that you want to talk about.
00:28:22
Speaker
Right.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
Right.
00:28:24
Speaker
I love that.
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:25
Speaker
So from there, you then move into what it is that you want to talk about.
00:28:29
Speaker
Because what you've got to think about is it's not about you.
00:28:32
Speaker
It's about your customer.
00:28:34
Speaker
So you've got to make the email about your customer.
00:28:36
Speaker
So from there, now you've personalized the first line of the email.
00:28:40
Speaker
What we're saying then is from a commercial solar standpoint is we would say something like, for example, I use my own name as an example.
00:28:49
Speaker
I'm Fabian.
00:28:50
Speaker
at Royal Energy and we help businesses reduce their energy bills with zero money out of pocket.
00:28:59
Speaker
We've just done it for this company saving them X amount over X amount of time and I'd love to show you how we did it.
00:29:07
Speaker
Would you mind if I sent over a couple of times for a quick 10 minute call to show you?
00:29:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:12
Speaker
Right?
00:29:13
Speaker
So what you're doing is you're baiting, you're personalizing the email, then baiting them with a case study.
00:29:18
Speaker
You're not selling anything.
00:29:19
Speaker
The goal of a cold email isn't to sell anything.
00:29:21
Speaker
It's to generate the next exposure, which is a phone call.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:25
Speaker
You know, so many people think cold email is to sell something.
00:29:29
Speaker
Who's going to buy a $200,000 solar system from an email?
00:29:34
Speaker
Nobody.
00:29:34
Speaker
True.
00:29:35
Speaker
Right?
00:29:35
Speaker
So you've got to make it about them and think about what is the next logical step from this initial cold email that I want my prospect to take.
00:29:45
Speaker
And the next logical step is a phone call.
00:29:48
Speaker
Same process that we're doing now.
00:29:50
Speaker
I emailed you.
00:29:51
Speaker
The next logical step was to have a brief conversation about what it would look like for me to get on your podcast.
00:29:56
Speaker
And now we've made the sale.
00:29:58
Speaker
We're doing the podcast.
00:29:59
Speaker
Same concept.
00:30:01
Speaker
Same concept.
00:30:02
Speaker
It's awesome.
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:03
Speaker
No, that's super cool.
00:30:04
Speaker
And, um, yeah, I mean, that's something I think even guys that are just doing residential, that's genius.
00:30:10
Speaker
Like if you have someone that has a big system, even in residential, whatever you're doing, how many people are actually going in researching their customers, like social media and because I, whatever you're selling, I mean, whether it's residential commercial, if you come at it with that's, um,
00:30:29
Speaker
with, like you said, personalizing it and finding out something cool.
00:30:32
Speaker
I mean, I don't know who's not going to at least respond to that.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:37
Speaker
Because I don't think anyone's getting emails like that.
00:30:38
Speaker
You know, keep talking.
00:30:41
Speaker
if you've got leads coming in through like Facebook messenger, like a lot of these Facebook advertisers are doing at the minute, you can sync the, uh, the Facebook ad to have somebody directly message you on Facebook.
00:30:52
Speaker
The first thing that you could say is, Hey, um, saw the, saw the post on your Facebook profile with you and the kids in the backyard, enjoying the summer daytime, you know, really nice to see that you're still able to enjoy yourself in the current climate.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:07
Speaker
And then drop into your solar pitch, you know?
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:09
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:31:11
Speaker
You know, most people have public stuff on their profile that you can comment on.
00:31:16
Speaker
You know, so if you're running a Facebook ad campaign and, you know, you wanted to generate interest for residential solar leads, one of the things you could do is have set up the Facebook ad to have somebody directly message you on Facebook.
00:31:29
Speaker
that they're interested in solar and then when they say hey I'm interested in solar don't say hey buy my system for $30,000 say hey I just saw you post on Facebook playing out in the garden with your kids really nice to see if it makes sense for us to talk about solar what available times what time should we do that so you've dropped their barrier
00:31:56
Speaker
You know, psychologically, they're beginning to know you like you and trust you.
00:32:00
Speaker
Whereas most salespeople, all they think about is themselves.
00:32:04
Speaker
It's about the customer.
00:32:06
Speaker
It's nothing to do with you.
00:32:07
Speaker
I love that.
00:32:08
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
And, um, well, just like anything, I mean, I'm sure it's numbers game and sure.
00:32:14
Speaker
There's lots of people that don't respond.
00:32:17
Speaker
Of course.
00:32:17
Speaker
What are your numbers?
00:32:18
Speaker
Does it depend on like the market and area or is it number state pretty much the same as far as like how many companies you need to reach out to?
00:32:26
Speaker
And yeah, so we've got it dialed in.
00:32:29
Speaker
It's there's an average, you know, so we reach out to about 60 companies a month for all of our clients, which equates to about 200 recipients.
00:32:41
Speaker
So we pick about two to three decision makers for each company.
00:32:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:46
Speaker
And from that, we're booking five solid qualified meetings every single month.
00:32:51
Speaker
60 meetings a year is what we guarantee for commercial solar.
00:32:55
Speaker
And we're, you know, we're holding our end of the bargain.
00:32:59
Speaker
At any point, we could increase that.
00:33:02
Speaker
But most of our clients that we have at the moment are happy with, you know, five solid meaningful conversations every single month, you know, as opposed to 15 crap ones, you know.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:33:16
Speaker
And by five meaningful conversations, is that just getting the points that they're having that they agree to the 10 minute conversation?
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, so that's, that's an agreement based on that they're interested in, you know, it's a priority for them to look at reducing their energy bills.
00:33:35
Speaker
And this is part of their environmental responsibility.
00:33:39
Speaker
The companies we reach, we're reaching out to, you know, a lot of them are, you know,
00:33:43
Speaker
multi multi franchises or big corporates or or if they're smaller than that they're companies that have more than one premise so they understand that it 100 totally makes sense to have a conversation about reducing their energy bills
00:33:57
Speaker
For example, some of the companies we're reaching out to spend over a hundred grand a month on electricity.
00:34:02
Speaker
Wow.
00:34:02
Speaker
You know, so yeah, to answer your question, the qualification process that's in place is that they, by the time they've read the email, they know it's 100% about solar.
00:34:15
Speaker
They've answered the question in terms of whether it makes sense for their business based on how much they're spending.
00:34:20
Speaker
And it's part of their environmental responsibility agendas.
00:34:25
Speaker
and then they will respond saying, yes, let's have a conversation about solar.
00:34:29
Speaker
So we're not just getting people randomly knocking that don't understand the value proposition that we're articulating.
00:34:36
Speaker
The key is what you write in the email, you know, to get the response.
00:34:39
Speaker
So we book the 10 minute conversation.
00:34:42
Speaker
And even in some cases, a lot of companies will just book a site meeting from the initial email.
00:34:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:52
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:34:53
Speaker
And would you say most of these companies, is there usually like, I don't know, two, three decision makers?
00:35:01
Speaker
Or does it usually come down to one decision maker?
00:35:03
Speaker
How does that work in the commercial?
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
So we take a top-down approach.
00:35:07
Speaker
So we'll always reach out to the CEO or the MD and we'll always send an email to the ops guys and the finance guys and if we can find them, the sustainability and the procurement guys.
00:35:18
Speaker
But what tends to happen is
00:35:20
Speaker
is the CEO will copy in the FD or the ops director anyway, and then they will sort of have a three-way conversation initially, and then book a site meeting.
00:35:33
Speaker
Or like I was saying, sometimes the ops guy or the finance guy will say, my CEO is interested in having a one-on-one conversation with you at the premises.
00:35:45
Speaker
Uh, it's really what we're putting in the email that, that, that triggers the kind of responses that we're getting.
00:35:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:53
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, with the whole COVID-19, how have you guys like changed your marketing or your messaging during this?
00:36:00
Speaker
Cause anyone's working from home.
00:36:03
Speaker
Um, have you guys had to make some adjustments or how has it changed with the whole?
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker
So, you know, we know a lot of our clients are familiar with doing zoom meetings and stuff like that.
00:36:13
Speaker
So we knew that we could still, um,
00:36:15
Speaker
Not much change for us on our end, to be quite honest with you, because we're still generating, we still know how to generate the phone call conversation, which is the same thing that we were doing before the COVID hit.
00:36:26
Speaker
But we face the COVID head on, you know, we would address it in our emails.
00:36:29
Speaker
Hey, I know things are quite up in the air with the current COVID situation at the moment.
00:36:33
Speaker
But I'm wondering, I'm wondering if it's essential that you look for new ways to create additional profit or I'm wondering if it's essential that you look for ways to reduce your energy costs, you know.
COVID-19 Communication Strategies
00:36:49
Speaker
So you just address it head on, you know, the COVID is real.
00:36:53
Speaker
It's not something to hide from, but just say, I know the current COVID situation has things up in the air at the moment, but I'm wondering if it's still essential that you protect your current profitability and who's not going to answer yes to that question when you think about it, you know, because their business isn't generating as much revenue as it was.
00:37:13
Speaker
So
00:37:14
Speaker
Why not look for a way to put more money in your pocket through solar?
00:37:17
Speaker
It's all about how you view it, how you view the market and how you perceive you are going to be perceived.
00:37:26
Speaker
And we've just faced it head on.
00:37:28
Speaker
But now in our emails, we're not even mentioning COVID anymore.
00:37:31
Speaker
We've just gone straight back to what we were saying before because we know that the market is sick of talking about COVID now.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's true.
00:37:40
Speaker
I think same thing with people that are knocking doors and all that.
00:37:43
Speaker
I mean, I know guys are kind of nervous to be out knocking doors, but I was just out generating some leads today.
00:37:50
Speaker
And like you said, if you don't make it a big deal, then people don't really make it a big deal in their heads either.
00:37:57
Speaker
So I think like you're saying, same stuff applies whether you're doing online lead gen or
00:38:02
Speaker
knocking doors like I'm doing all the time too.
00:38:05
Speaker
I mean, it's important.
00:38:07
Speaker
And for you, Fabian, what is, as far as like follow-up and everything, I know, I think you even had to follow up with me.
00:38:13
Speaker
I don't even think I responded to you the first email you sent.
00:38:17
Speaker
And so I'm sure that's the same with a lot of these commercial companies.
00:38:21
Speaker
What does the follow-up look like for guys that don't respond?
00:38:24
Speaker
And what are you saying in those emails?
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:27
Speaker
So the fortune is always in the follow-up, you know, I'll be honest with you.
00:38:30
Speaker
You've got to set the right expectations with any outreach strategy.
00:38:33
Speaker
OK, so if you're, you know, let's say you're sending to 200 people, you've got to be OK with, you know, a large percent of them not even replying to the first email.
00:38:43
Speaker
Right.
00:38:44
Speaker
Right.
00:38:44
Speaker
Because they're busy.
00:38:45
Speaker
They might see it, but they think I'll reply in 10 minutes and then something happens and then they don't reply at all.
00:38:51
Speaker
Right.
00:38:51
Speaker
So you've got to be OK with that.
00:38:53
Speaker
So the fortune is always in the follow up.
00:38:54
Speaker
So we always set a follow up for we've tried to respect people's time and how busy they are.
00:39:00
Speaker
So we set a follow up for like three days after and just say, hey, John, I'm sure you're busy and wanted to make sure this didn't get buried.
00:39:07
Speaker
Because then what it does is it forces them to scroll back up to the initial email you sent with your pitch in it.
00:39:16
Speaker
I think that's the exact email you sent to me 100% it was and it worked I'm like oh yeah, Fabian asked me about the podcast you know and if they don't respond after that I would go with something like you know because you've got to focus on what the again what the next exposure is it's the phone call so you want to focus on the meeting every time so I would say something like
00:39:42
Speaker
Hey, John, did you get my email the other day?
00:39:45
Speaker
And then chunk it down to a new line and say, I haven't heard from you dot dot dot, which insinuates that you should have heard from him by now.
00:39:54
Speaker
And then chunk it down again.
00:39:55
Speaker
New paragraph.
00:39:56
Speaker
Any thoughts or questions?
00:39:58
Speaker
OK, I like that.
00:40:01
Speaker
And how many?
00:40:02
Speaker
They go ahead.
00:40:03
Speaker
You can go peek the curiosity all the time, you know, that's what you got to do as long as your intentions are ethical, you know, it's okay to peek their curiosity.
00:40:12
Speaker
Of course, if you know that what you're selling is actually going to deliver value to them.
00:40:16
Speaker
Right.
00:40:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:18
Speaker
How, how, like for how long would you follow up with these companies before you just kind of like drop them?
00:40:24
Speaker
Is that like months and months or
00:40:26
Speaker
We don't stop following up until we get a hard no or a fuck off.
00:40:29
Speaker
Excuse my friend.
00:40:31
Speaker
Well, it's our job.
00:40:33
Speaker
Think about it, right?
00:40:33
Speaker
It's our job.
00:40:35
Speaker
If we know that we've got a solar solution or in my regard, I've got a product that serves a commercial solar market that I know delivers value.
00:40:45
Speaker
I'm only doing myself and my clients an injustice by not making sure I'm pestering them in a good way.
00:40:54
Speaker
you know, in a polite way, in a respectful way to get a hard no or a hard yes.
00:40:59
Speaker
If you believe that your product and service is going to deliver value, then why not keep knocking at that door in the most respectful and polite manner possible until you get a hard no or a hard yes.
00:41:09
Speaker
And this is why people don't generate the results they want to generate because they feel guilty about following up or they just don't have the time to do all of the following up.
00:41:19
Speaker
But you've got to form a good relationship with following up, otherwise you're not going to generate the results you want to generate.
00:41:26
Speaker
Which is what our system and our business is all about.
00:41:29
Speaker
We employ a relentless follow-up strategy because we know that people are busy, you know?
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's so true and super important.
00:41:42
Speaker
I mean, even in, you know, just with like door knocking I'm doing, I train new reps all the time that we go to a neighborhood and we hear someone in the house, they're cooking or whatever, doors even open.
00:41:54
Speaker
And we'll ring three times and they won't come to the door.
00:41:57
Speaker
And it's like, are you kidding?
00:41:58
Speaker
We know you're in there.
00:41:59
Speaker
Why don't you just come to the door?
00:42:01
Speaker
But they won't come to the door.
00:42:02
Speaker
And then all of these newer reps are like, okay, well, obviously they don't want to come here.
00:42:06
Speaker
Let's just, you know, check them off in the CRM and don't bother them.
00:42:11
Speaker
But like you're saying, my thing is, if you know you're doing a service, you know, if it's a disservice to that homeowner that you're not going to at least offer them your products, because it's going to improve their lives, then really you need to look inside yourself and just, you know, make sure you have the belief to keep on following up, like you're saying, because if you know it's really going to help them, then.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah, even if you're bugging them, even if you know that they heard you knock on the door or ring or reach out an email like you're saying, really you're doing them a disservice if you don't do everything possible to get in front of them.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah, we followed up 48 times before to get an appointment.
00:42:49
Speaker
Oh my gosh, wow.
00:42:51
Speaker
Did that person say anything?
00:42:53
Speaker
Were they like, you guys are persistent or anything?
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, so they admire the persistence.
00:42:58
Speaker
When you're saying the right things in the email and you're not just sending a crap email to piss them off and you're sending something, hey, did you get this?
00:43:08
Speaker
Or hey, sent you an email a few weeks back about reducing your energy bills.
00:43:12
Speaker
Are you interested?
00:43:14
Speaker
you know and they come back and say you know thanks for continuing to to follow up I've just been really busy with other projects and other assignments I'm really interested in having a conversation about it now and it's just because they were busy you know yeah you got to get rid of these things in your mind that people don't want you to follow up or or it you feel guilty about following up because that really hinders the amount of money you're going to make in your business yeah
00:43:39
Speaker
So true.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
As far as like, um, transition a little bit, as far as like software you guys use and everything, Fabian, um, how much of all this is like, is this like through an autoresponder that emails are getting sent out just automatically or how much of you is actually typing these emails out and maybe talk about the software you guys
Automating Email Outreach
00:44:00
Speaker
use.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:01
Speaker
So there's many platforms you can use to automate your outreach.
00:44:06
Speaker
Um,
00:44:07
Speaker
The key thing is that you want to employ a software solution that has human-like sending.
00:44:14
Speaker
So for example, our custom software solution that we use, it only sends about 37 emails out an hour.
00:44:23
Speaker
So one email will go out and then seven minutes later, another email will go out and then 15 minutes later, another email will go out.
00:44:34
Speaker
So we do automate our outreach process.
00:44:36
Speaker
I mean, can you imagine having 20 clients that all have 200 recipients a month and four follow ups as a minimum?
00:44:45
Speaker
So we automate it.
00:44:46
Speaker
But the key thing is that the software solutions you use have to be able to accommodate custom fields.
00:44:56
Speaker
that you are using within your Excel spreadsheet.
00:44:59
Speaker
So if you've got a list of 200 people in your Excel spreadsheet and one of the column headings is first name and then the other column heading is their company name and then the other column heading is their title and the other column heading, for example, is their location,
00:45:14
Speaker
your custom software solution has got to be able to be intuitive enough to drag that information from the Excel spreadsheet to make the email look like it's coming from you and you personalized it.
00:45:29
Speaker
So that's how you scale your outreach.
00:45:32
Speaker
by using a software solution and uploading a CSV into it with all of the personalized information that you spent time getting to be able to personalize your outreach at scale.
00:45:42
Speaker
So software that you can use to do that is this one called Woodpecker.
00:45:46
Speaker
There's other ones called Mailshake.
00:45:49
Speaker
There's another one called reply.io.
00:45:53
Speaker
If you just Google cold outreach automation software on Google, there'll be about 15 of them that come up.
00:46:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:02
Speaker
Cool.
00:46:02
Speaker
I like that.
00:46:04
Speaker
So you guys basically just have all your kind of canned responses or your follow-up sequences just plugged in the software you use.
00:46:13
Speaker
And then is it just like, if you don't get a response in X amount of days, it'll automatically go out with the next response that you were mentioning before?
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:24
Speaker
So to be clear, so it's a semi-automatic process.
00:46:26
Speaker
So initially we'll send out the four emails that are
00:46:31
Speaker
customer centric but also specific to the products that we're offering so we'll send out four emails over a period of about two weeks and then from there we add all of those prospects to our clients CRM solution that we manage for them and continue to follow up with all of those people manually okay so it's a combination of automation and manual outreach
00:47:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:01
Speaker
So like the, you're talking about sending out the personalized first email that talks about, you know, their dog or whatever awards or something like that.
00:47:10
Speaker
So that part you're doing manually and you're plugging in manually and then that's going to get sent out to them.
00:47:16
Speaker
And the rest of the stuff will kind of be somewhat just automated.
00:47:20
Speaker
Is that right?
00:47:21
Speaker
Some somewhat automated to a degree.
00:47:23
Speaker
And then we take the follow-up process into our own hands from there.
00:47:29
Speaker
and follow up manually from there going forward.
00:47:32
Speaker
You know, you, you, you know, I'm not going to hide anything.
00:47:35
Speaker
We're busy.
00:47:36
Speaker
You know, we've got a lot to do.
00:47:37
Speaker
We've got a lot of clients to serve.
00:47:39
Speaker
We live in a world where the internet is our best friend.
00:47:42
Speaker
So why not leverage cloud software solutions to do some of the heavy lifting for you, you know?
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:50
Speaker
That's cool.
00:47:50
Speaker
What one do you guys, which software do you guys use specifically?
00:47:54
Speaker
Or have you tried all these ones that you talked about?
00:47:56
Speaker
So I've tried about 10 or 15 of them.
00:47:59
Speaker
And I personally think that Mailshake or the first two I mentioned, Mailshake and Woodpecker are the best ones for you to use.
00:48:08
Speaker
For a number of reasons that are quite technical that I won't explain right now, but all you need to know is that those two are the best ones.
00:48:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:48:17
Speaker
Cool.
00:48:17
Speaker
We'll link to those.
00:48:18
Speaker
And then would you, would you say those softwares could apply for like people that are doing residential too, to plug in like residential emails?
00:48:27
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:48:29
Speaker
Because what you've got now with like, you know, Facebook ads and funnels and YouTube ads and funnels, you can integrate things through a platform called Zapier.
00:48:42
Speaker
Right.
00:48:42
Speaker
And that Zapier is a software that,
00:48:46
Speaker
automates business processes so for example if you had somebody come through on your Facebook ad you could link the fake you could link the you could link it up with Zapier and tell Zapier to drag the email that the person left on your website and drag it into Wardpecker where then you could send a drip sequence to them okay okay
00:49:12
Speaker
Hey, solarepreneurs, real quick.
00:49:14
Speaker
If you've been in the solar industry any amount of time, you know that in order to take it to the next level, you need to always be recruiting.
00:49:20
Speaker
What is it?
00:49:21
Speaker
ABR.
00:49:22
Speaker
Always be recruiting.
00:49:24
Speaker
So if you need help with recruiting, I wanted to share with you something that helped me take my recruiting skills to the next level.
00:49:31
Speaker
We literally went from an office of less than 10 reps to 25 to 30 reps in less than three months.
00:49:40
Speaker
And we did this with reps that continue to sell with us.
00:49:45
Speaker
Two or three of them went on to become managers.
00:49:47
Speaker
Several of them were top producers in our office.
00:49:51
Speaker
And there are multiple reps that are still with us to this day, more than a year later.
00:49:58
Speaker
So what is it that helped me?
00:50:00
Speaker
I took up the services of Ryan Holman with Sells Recruiting University.
00:50:06
Speaker
He helped me develop a system to take my recruiting game to the next level.
00:50:11
Speaker
And he really helped me follow up with the recruits, schedule group interviews with them, get a huge pool of applicants coming in day after day.
00:50:21
Speaker
I wanted to share with you guys his link.
00:50:23
Speaker
If you are looking to take your recruiting skills to the next level, go to Calendly.com slash sru forward slash solarpreneur.
00:50:35
Speaker
Once again, that's Calendly.com slash sru slash solarpreneur.
00:50:43
Speaker
SRU is Sales Recruiting University.
00:50:45
Speaker
Ryan will help you take it to the next level.
00:50:54
Speaker
Cool enough to check those out.
00:50:56
Speaker
Cause yeah, I've used just some of them were like common ones that aren't specifically for like cold outreach.
00:51:02
Speaker
I don't think, but just, you know, the MailChimp's the active campaign, stuff like that.
00:51:09
Speaker
But I'm sure it sounds like those have, you know, way more features and more specific for kind of cold email outreach.
00:51:15
Speaker
Right.
00:51:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:17
Speaker
I mean, they all, they all work, but from a residential standpoint, um,
00:51:22
Speaker
You really want to be indoctrinated in your audience.
00:51:25
Speaker
So the first email sequence that we would send to the residential market would be an indoctrination sequence where you're introducing yourself, introducing your brand and then giving away for about two or three days, giving away three pieces of content that educates them about solar and why it's beneficial for them.
00:51:47
Speaker
And then from there you move them into what's called a conversion campaign where you actually focus on, okay, so I've delivered some golden nuggets for the past three days.
00:51:56
Speaker
You now like me a little bit more and you're beginning to trust me.
00:51:59
Speaker
Why don't we move to the next best logical step and book an appointment?
00:52:04
Speaker
So you want to indoctrinate your market first and then move to a conversion campaign, which is booking the next exposure in being the phone call conversation.
00:52:15
Speaker
Okay, gotcha.
00:52:17
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:52:17
Speaker
And then so what you guys do Fabian, are you pretty much stopping once the once the lead like books and appointment.
00:52:25
Speaker
That's when you guys are just handed off to commercial solar company or do you guys do anything past that.
00:52:31
Speaker
No, we don't really need to do anything past that because by the time the meeting's booked, the decision maker that we've reached out to knows that they're 100% having a conversation about reducing their energy bills and they're interested in it.
00:52:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:46
Speaker
You know, so by that point, that's it, you know.
00:52:49
Speaker
A lot of the time they're already sending over their electricity bills or whilst they're on the phone with our clients because they're that warm by the time we book the appointment.
00:53:02
Speaker
Our clients will just ask for the electricity bill and they'll have it on hand.
00:53:06
Speaker
It's all about the language you use in the emails as to how you can make somebody feel and influence them to do what you want them to do.
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:17
Speaker
Makes sense.
00:53:18
Speaker
Do you guys do like in your separate markets?
00:53:21
Speaker
Are you keeping all the messaging basically the same?
00:53:24
Speaker
I know you mentioned that in the UK, it's mostly PPAs you're doing.
00:53:29
Speaker
But in the US, I assume it's the mostly like loans, would you say that are done in the US?
00:53:36
Speaker
We've got clients that do PPAs.
00:53:39
Speaker
There's loans involved, like you say, and there's a lot of companies that do CapEx.
00:53:42
Speaker
So
00:53:43
Speaker
We talk with our client before even thinking about what message to put in the marketplace.
00:53:48
Speaker
And they'll say to us, well, we really want to focus on CapEx stuff.
00:53:52
Speaker
So we tailor our message.
00:53:54
Speaker
What is CapEx?
00:53:55
Speaker
CapEx, capital expenditure.
00:53:57
Speaker
So it's where they pay for the system outright.
00:54:00
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:54:01
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:54:03
Speaker
Cool.
00:54:03
Speaker
And then you have different sequences and different messaging just basically based on what the client says.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:54:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:54:11
Speaker
So everything's custom, you know, it's, you know, we've got a system in place that we know works, but it's not 100% cookie cutter because all of our clients promote their products and services in a different way, you know?
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:25
Speaker
It's cool.
00:54:26
Speaker
Everybody has different business processes in place and stuff.
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:31
Speaker
Awesome stuff.
00:54:31
Speaker
And for those that are like new to this email outreach stuff and maybe just knocking on doors residential, that's how I started in the industry.
Utilizing Customer Emails
00:54:41
Speaker
I think one of the biggest mistakes I made, especially starting out is I would grab emails, I would get all this information from homeowners on the door.
00:54:49
Speaker
but I would never keep the emails.
00:54:52
Speaker
I just kind of like if I, if I didn't sit down with them, I wouldn't do any type of followup and I had their email and their phone number, but I'm like, Oh, well they didn't show up for their appointment.
00:55:02
Speaker
So I'm just going to move on to the next person.
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:04
Speaker
No, that's your golden, that's your golden ticket there to the promised land, the email, you know?
00:55:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:09
Speaker
But yeah, especially for newer reps, it's like if you have the phone number,
00:55:14
Speaker
and the email and you're not doing anything with that information.
00:55:17
Speaker
I think people are missing a huge opportunity with that.
00:55:20
Speaker
And like you said, with the software, there's so many chances we have to, if we, if we grab that email, you can plug them into, you know, some sort of sequence, some sort of drip sequence that's going out.
00:55:31
Speaker
Hey, we missed you on the appointments.
00:55:34
Speaker
Try and get a response.
00:55:36
Speaker
I mean, if you, if you're really clever, you could have a combination of an email drip sequence going out and a text message being sent to their mobile phone.
00:55:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:45
Speaker
That's super smart.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:47
Speaker
I know.
00:55:47
Speaker
I've got, yeah.
00:55:49
Speaker
Some of my, in my current company, they, uh, yeah, they, they stopped requiring our appointment setters to even ask for an email on the doors.
00:55:59
Speaker
They're like, no, we don't need to get an email.
00:56:01
Speaker
It's just focused on getting phone numbers.
00:56:04
Speaker
And then I'm like, dude, what are you thinking, man?
00:56:05
Speaker
Like, we got their phone number, grabbed their email too.
00:56:09
Speaker
That's a huge opportunity.
00:56:11
Speaker
But, uh,
00:56:12
Speaker
I think, you know, for those old school guys that are just about knocking doors.
00:56:17
Speaker
I mean, look what Fabian's doing.
00:56:19
Speaker
He's helping people make millions of dollars off commercial leads.
00:56:23
Speaker
So missing a huge opportunity.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's all about the email.
00:56:27
Speaker
And, you know, just to add another golden nugget, when you think about a business domain, right, let's say we had Fabian.
00:56:36
Speaker
This is my email address, fabian at royalenergy.co.
00:56:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:56:42
Speaker
my domain is automatically set up to accept all mail because as a business, I don't want to miss any emails that people might be sending me about potential business.
00:56:52
Speaker
Right?
00:56:53
Speaker
So your open rates on sending emails to business domains are huge because they accept all mail the majority of the time, which is why cold email outreach for commercial solar works really, really well.
00:57:08
Speaker
some of our campaigns have a 70% open rate of people that we send to.
00:57:14
Speaker
So like I was saying, if we're sending to 200 people a month, can you imagine 70% of the people that you're sending an email to opening it, right?
00:57:23
Speaker
And then we average around, we average anywhere between, I would say, an 18% response rate to a 30% response rate.
00:57:31
Speaker
And then we're getting anywhere between a 5% and 6% meeting book rate.
00:57:35
Speaker
Wow.
00:57:36
Speaker
So it's, it's insane, you know, from cold email, you know, cold email is the, the cold email is in the new cold door knocking and cold calling.
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, I know, especially right now.
00:57:48
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:57:49
Speaker
Well, Fabian, we've gone through a ton of stuff and appreciate your, your golden nuggets you shared with us.
00:57:55
Speaker
We want to, we don't want to keep you too long because I know you're super slammed with your clients and everything, but where can you,
00:58:02
Speaker
Where can people find out more about what you're doing and possibly connect with you more in the future?
00:58:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:58:08
Speaker
So you can go to my website.
00:58:10
Speaker
It's www.royal.
00:58:13
Speaker
So Royal spelled R-O-Y-A-L, energy.
00:58:16
Speaker
You obviously know how to spell energy.co.
00:58:19
Speaker
You can also hit me up on LinkedIn as well.
00:58:21
Speaker
So my name is actually spelled P-H-A-I-B-I-O-N, Royal, R-O-Y-A-L.
00:58:29
Speaker
And my profile will come up and the tagline next to it is commercial solar lead generation expert.
00:58:35
Speaker
Um, and if you wanted to, if you want to reach out to me on my personal phone number, you can also hit me on there.
00:58:39
Speaker
So you want to add the UK prefix, which is plus four, four, and then you want to type in seven, eight, oh, seven, five, eight, four, six, seven, one.
00:58:51
Speaker
And that's how you can pretty much get in touch with me.
00:58:53
Speaker
I'm a busy MD of my own company.
00:58:56
Speaker
I'm always in my email inbox or on my phone at some point.
00:59:00
Speaker
So I'm available to you guys if anybody wants to reach out.
00:59:04
Speaker
And if he doesn't answer the first time, just remember to send him a second email just saying, hey, just wanted to make sure this didn't get buried.
00:59:10
Speaker
Then I'll respond for sure.
00:59:12
Speaker
hey fortune is always in the follow-up you know i might even ignore you the first time just to test to see if you listen to the goal right yeah see if they're listening yeah yeah but uh no appreciate all the stuff and yeah we'll link to your profile and um some of the software and stuff like that you mentioned on the show um so before we say goodbye fabian um any final words of wisdom you want to share um any other tips final tips you want to share with our listeners
00:59:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think I really want to reiterate from a commercial standpoint and residential standpoint, make it about the customer every single
Focusing on Customer Needs for Success
00:59:50
Speaker
time.
00:59:50
Speaker
Forget about your goals because what I found is that if I help enough people get what they want, then the sales and the revenue and the freedom lifestyle that I live today takes care of itself.
01:00:05
Speaker
I mean, right now I'm sat in Bali.
01:00:07
Speaker
I'm able to travel the world working from my laptop.
01:00:10
Speaker
you know, serving commercial solar businesses in the U S Australia, UK, you know, again, not everybody's got the same goals, but, um, all of it, what I've been able to achieve for myself is, you know, freedom over my time and over my life by helping people get what they want first versus focusing on the monetary aspect of things all of the time, deliver value and the rest takes care of itself.
01:00:34
Speaker
Yep, no, so true.
01:00:36
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, if anyone listens to Zig Ziglar, you know what he says.
01:00:39
Speaker
If you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want as well.
01:00:45
Speaker
He's one of the first people that I listen to.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, good old Zig.
01:00:49
Speaker
He's a master.
01:00:49
Speaker
He's great, right?
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:52
Speaker
So yeah, I just think coming across with that, you know, servants, just service mindsets, something super important and something people forget.
01:01:01
Speaker
So Fabian, thanks for coming on the show.
01:01:02
Speaker
Thanks for sharing all your tips with us.
01:01:05
Speaker
And I'm sure people will be reaching out.
01:01:07
Speaker
Hopefully they don't call you too much, you know, explode your cell phone or anything, as you put it.
01:01:13
Speaker
But yeah, we'll look forward to connecting more.
01:01:17
Speaker
And thanks again for coming on the show with us.
01:01:20
Speaker
No, no, thanks for thanks for having me.
01:01:22
Speaker
I think I said before, um,
01:01:24
Speaker
you know, I'm pretty much an introvert, um, but because I've, you know, I'm building up the confidence and I'm delivering so much value to businesses.
01:01:31
Speaker
Now when I found your solopreneur podcast, I just thought, you know what, jump out of your comfort zone, get on the phone with the guy and, you know, share some nuggets, you know?
01:01:39
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I just want to, uh, say, say, you know, put some appreciation out there for taking the time to hop on with me today.
01:01:48
Speaker
And, uh, hopefully people got some value.
01:01:50
Speaker
Um,
01:01:51
Speaker
You know, there might have been some mishaps and mistakes along the way, but I'm sure if you listen, you'll pretty much be able to fumble your way through this podcast and get some results for yourself.
01:02:03
Speaker
Definitely, definitely.
01:02:05
Speaker
No, you definitely shared some golden nuggets with us.
01:02:07
Speaker
So thanks for being persistent with the follow-up because who knows, maybe you wouldn't have been on the show if you wouldn't have followed up with me.
01:02:14
Speaker
He's putting what he preaches in practice.
01:02:15
Speaker
100%.
01:02:16
Speaker
That's what it's about.
01:02:20
Speaker
Awesome.
01:02:20
Speaker
Thanks, Fabian.
01:02:21
Speaker
We'll keep connecting and we'll talk soon.
01:02:25
Speaker
Thanks, Taylor.
01:02:25
Speaker
Thanks so much for your time.
01:02:26
Speaker
Thanks for listening, everybody.
01:02:28
Speaker
Peace.
01:02:30
Speaker
Wow, what another value-packed episode of The Solarpreneur.
01:02:34
Speaker
Guys, if you couldn't tell, we spend a lot of time and energy to put these episodes out to hopefully give you just one strategy, one golden nugget that's going to launch your solar career to the next level.
01:02:44
Speaker
And we do it all for free.
01:02:46
Speaker
And if you found any value in this episode or it's helped you in any way, all I ask in return is that you just take 30 seconds of your time and leave us a review on iTunes.
01:02:55
Speaker
so that we can help more solopreneurs like you to change the world.
01:02:59
Speaker
And as a gift for leaving us a review, we have a special training package exclusive for solopreneur listeners over at solopreneurs.com.
01:03:08
Speaker
Remember, you need to leave us a review on iTunes to qualify for the training package.
01:03:12
Speaker
So take care of that now, and we'll see you on the next episode.
01:03:40
Speaker
Wow, what another value packed episode of the solarpreneur.
01:03:43
Speaker
Guys, if you couldn't tell, we spend a lot of time and energy to put these episodes out to hopefully give you just one strategy, one golden nugget that's going to launch your solar career to the next level.
01:03:54
Speaker
And we do it all for free.
01:03:56
Speaker
And if you found any value in this episode or it's helped you in any way, all I ask in return is that you just take 30 seconds of your time and leave us a review on iTunes so that we can help more solopreneurs like you to change the world.
01:04:08
Speaker
And as a gift for leaving us a review, we have a special training package exclusive for solopreneur listeners over at solopreneurs.com.
01:04:17
Speaker
Remember, you need to leave us a review on iTunes to qualify for the training package.
01:04:22
Speaker
So take care of that now and we'll see you on the next episode.