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Presenting To A Customer With My Competitor
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You'll rarely see a homeowner ask two different companies for an appointment at the same time, but that's where I found myself recently. This episode will break down how I adapted to this situation, and specifically what I did to give my own company the edge over theirs.
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Transcript
Taylor's Journey from Struggles to Success
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong. went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Avoiding Past Mistakes in Solar Sales
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you 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? 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.
Team Strategy and Solar Scout Introduction
00:00:41
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door door sales team here in San Diego.
00:00:46
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:00:57
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market. It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:01:16
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up. But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need give my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:01:31
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show.
Facing Competitors in Sales Appointments
00:01:46
Speaker
Hey, what's up, Sorpreneurs? Today, I'm going to be going over a unique experience I had, first time ever, that I sat in an appointment with a competitor. So I'm going to tell you the good, the bad, the ugly from that experience, and ah hopefully you don't have to do the same.
00:02:01
Speaker
Okay, but... Welcome to the show. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and have a much better time in the solar industry. Hope you're closing lots of deals.
00:02:12
Speaker
Hope you are putting your foot to the gas pedal throughout the summer and now entering the fall months or whenever you're listening this. If you have not left us a review, please, please, please go on to Apple, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to the podcasts. leave us a review. That is the only ask we have and it really helps us grow the show.
00:02:34
Speaker
Hey, so um as you just heard, last week I had the unique experience of sitting in an appointment with a competitor. ah It's never happened. Been in solar for 10 years and I've never had a appointment where the homeowner actually requested that we both come at the same time.
00:02:52
Speaker
So I wanted to share the experience. Actually, some of you may have seen, i gave a little highlights, little recap of what happens on Instagram. If you're following me over there, spoiler alert, you can go see it's what happened on social media, but I'm going to be going a little more in depth.
00:03:09
Speaker
And we're going to break out some live footage from the experience and hopefully it entertains you. Hopefully it gives you some stuff to chew on. And if you find yourself in that situation, you can probably see them see some things I could have done better.
00:03:22
Speaker
Maybe so see some things that I did well just to learn from. Okay, so before we jump into the live footage of it, just the backstory was i had met with this customer, was pretty interested, but ah before we could sign the documents, she wanted to get, you she wanted to talk with her brothers that had gone solar recently.
00:03:42
Speaker
And she didn't know which company they'd gone with, um but she was just like, I trust them, I know they've gone solar, so before I do anything, I need to talk to them. And I told her that we had... some deadlines, we have urgency, right? You know, we got tax credits disappearing, lots of reasons to go sooner rather than later. so I told her, look, ah her name's Margaret. So I said, hey, look, Margaret, we do have to get applications in before some of these deadlines.
00:04:10
Speaker
um We're trying to help as many people as possible. And we are working in the neighborhood right now. We do have to get the applications in. If we come back later today or tomorrow, And she's like, okay, well, tomorrow, yeah, come back tomorrow.
00:04:24
Speaker
And she agreed to do the appointment tomorrow, which is great. So just pro tip before we get into the footage, if you can't sign someone that day, give them a reason that you need to get it in as soon as possible, right? Bring up the tax credits aspiring, bring up whatever circumstances you have going on. And if you do that effectively, then most of the time you can get a return appointment that's sooner rather than later. So that allowed us to meet the next day. What happened next was a total surprise. Hey, I went the next day. We'd scheduled for four o'clock. I showed up at four.
00:04:57
Speaker
And when I got there, she's like, oh, I thought you were coming at five. And I'm like, oh, we had you for four. um Still works, right? And she said, no, well, I'm I want you to come at five because I actually scheduled the other company, company called Sunrun, to also come at that time.
00:05:13
Speaker
And I want you to come so I can see both options and i want you guys both to present to me at that time. And when she said that, but i had I had no idea what to say. Again, this has never happened to me in my 10 years in solar. Okay. um Are you sure you don't want me just come after? yeah I don't want to cause you know issues coming at the same time as another company. She's like, no, please come at the same time as him.
00:05:37
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, well, um I do have a few other people. So maybe a little bit after that. But um okay, guess I can come at that time. So she said to come back at five.
00:05:49
Speaker
So I went to a follow up, another appointment I had, and then got done with that. little little after five, but in my head, I'm like, well, you know I'm go to go after. I'm to go later at like 5.30 because I want the Sunrun guy to present everything he has to present.
00:06:04
Speaker
Then I'm going to come in and just blow her out of the water with what I got, and she'll want to pick us. But ah you'll come to see that back backfired on me a little bit and didn't go right as expected.
00:06:15
Speaker
So let's play some live footage. You can hear some of my stumbling around. This wasn't the smoothest appointment. Definitely made mistakes. And also the audio isn't the greatest, but hopefully you can pick up some of what was going on here. Did you want me to come in with this guy?
00:06:32
Speaker
ah Okay, or I can wait to just finish up to you. think I'm going to with someone. Okay, well why don't we put it in side by side and then try to fight for someone. I'm going to go, man.
00:06:45
Speaker
good care as major thanks we and regardments before but from myers um compare it Yeah, that, but... Yeah.
00:06:58
Speaker
yeah we go just side by side
Handling Objections and Offering Value
00:07:00
Speaker
whatever you got in then yeah what do you have the contract id and you eat you like no and and you ask we can off out yeah you were you were tre be for sun So this guy, you know, when I first knocked on the door, I heard this guy, you know, saying some negatives about, about ah what we had.
00:07:22
Speaker
And so instantly made me think maybe I should have come on time. Because I think what had happened, this guy had gone in. He had started stock um basically just going through what we said and saying all the reasons why it wasn't the that good option.
00:07:38
Speaker
And that's why you heard her when she came to the door. She's like, oh, I think I'm going to go with Sunrun. That was part of it. And it didn't help that her brothers had gone solar with Sunrun. So I was already finding up a battle. But I made my way in and wanted to least see what I could do.
00:07:54
Speaker
So let's continue a couple other sections there. yeah i told there ah you guys selling just the drug ppas or don't know if you already went over like numbers and stuff yeah okay yeah so i'm like lower than you guys if you can offer something i can price match that yeah and then go even lower but that's enough okay are you guys including the roof too i yeah Okay, and come to find out he wasn't actually lower, so I don't know why he was saying lower. They were actually slightly higher than what I had told the homeowner. I start saying, ah well, let's see what we can do, crunch in some numbers. Basically just wanted to get into some things that we could add value-wise that weren't focused on the numbers. with you can always get into price battles.
00:08:40
Speaker
It could be a race to the bottom. But what I was trying to see is, okay, if I could offer something that's more value, better warranties, better equipment, can I get her with that? And so you'll hear that's what I tried to start going into is um what I thought we could offer her in terms of value that didn't have to do with the price.
00:09:00
Speaker
and we'sley most important to you margaret and like Yeah, mean, if Sunrun's the best option, then go with Sunrun, right? But as far as, like, factors to make a decision, what's the most important to you? Well, I mean, the price is about the same. 25 years of the morning, so you get it.
00:09:16
Speaker
Okay. So, yeah, guess I'm going to tell you, like, a couple small differences, and then, because the price, and yeah, it's probably going to be about the same like i'm sure maybe So I asked her what was most important to her and she really didn't give me an answer.
00:09:30
Speaker
you tell her, she was like, I don't even know this and that. And definitely was a little awkward being in there. ah definitely felt like the outsider. i think she had already made her decision before I even got in the house. But I think she was just letting me in as kind of a courtesy because she said she would.
00:09:46
Speaker
um so I start going through some some of the things that I thought we could offer to see if that would grab her attention at all. get a little lower I'm sure maybe A's can get a little lower. So I'm sure pricing probably going be similar stuff.
00:10:00
Speaker
So Sunrun, it's the bigger name. And can probably explain the Sunrun stuff, obviously, better than I do anymore. yeah just a meeting with a with Sunrun.
00:10:11
Speaker
One thing that I do know is a little bit different. They do do a 25-year guarantee on the roof section of it. I mean, car but you guys do 10 years, right? Okay. So yeah, that is one thing that people like with this, the 25-year guarantee on the roof.
00:10:24
Speaker
So that's one difference. Yeah, obviously I'm not going to like talk because Sunruns, we use Sunrun. Oh, I don't have it because some we use Sunrun too. Yeah. I don't have anything bad to say about Sunrun.
00:10:37
Speaker
I just know with this, ah it's not like a nationwide company. We're privately owned. So I don't know. I have heard that it's like, you can speak to that. it's not a bad thing. But I have heard it's like been quicker as far as like service stuff that goes with us.
00:10:51
Speaker
It's privately owned, you know, like all teams and stuff like that. So that's what I was trying to hit her with more than anything is that we were able to offer her a longer warranty on the roof. And then we are a local company. We're a privately owned company. So we have local teams, quicker response times.
00:11:09
Speaker
And I was trying to do it in a way because obviously I wasn't trying to cause a fight there. And I think he was definitely talking negative negative about us. So when I walked up the door, heard some negative things being said, but he's right in front of me. So I'm not trying to like trash Sunrun. It's usually less effective, right? Usually if you trash a company and talk negatively about them, um usually backfires, it makes you look bad at the same time if you're talking negative about a company.
00:11:34
Speaker
So what I found is it always works better to say it from other people's perspective, right? And things that you've heard, things that you've experienced talking to people that have gone with Sunrun.
00:11:46
Speaker
that's how i tried to paint the picture. And I think another effective question that I could have asked is just, hey, Margaret, if everything's the same, if the price is the same, which one would you choose? Because then that forces her to think and it forces her to...
Reflecting on Sales Challenges and Improvements
00:12:00
Speaker
kind of like, I guess, spill the beans on which one she's leaning towards. She probably would have said sun run because my brothers are going with them. it would have given me kind of like a temperature check, heat check right there, see what she's thinking. Asked her what what was most important in her head. She kind of just said nothing. And so I was just trying to throw out some bait, throw the line out, hook and bait, see if I could hook her with something.
00:12:24
Speaker
But it wasn't going great. So that was... um the you The main points of value that I talked about, um the Sunrun guy started saying, I'm sure some of you guys have done this, but as they were doing the roof, they were going put a separate roof warranty on it.
00:12:40
Speaker
so well i would say that because I've only seen 10 or 15 so far, but we'll be redoing the roof, so we'll have a 25-year or 30-year warranty. ah kind of known one cause it it'll be like And they were wanting for the group since we're redoing it separate from actual solar 10 year. I would just say, they basically like work for someone so that like because most of small companies go out of business like very fast because I used to work for like a small company I know Latacy is not like quite like the smallest company I used to work for but it is like pretty big us but it's not quite similar we're the largest installers in the United States we do everything in-house so like our installers everything's in-house you guys are a subcontractor of us so was like why would you do that you we're not a subcontractor but we just use you guys as a number of people I mean like ah a third party of us so that would be like I'm not gonna
00:13:32
Speaker
and then also as far as like the nationwide you guys i wouldn't i know guys are like more local but we do have good service that's what i really like about sunrex i know some some reps just kind sell and don't care like just just like yeah so she doesn't know that but some reps some reps just sell and don't care like someone has really good service that's what i like that they're like they are all the time like anytime they can go right because they're not done with yes Okay, so you hear us. We're going back and forth on some small points.
00:14:04
Speaker
um Nothing too too too big against the other. He's trying to say we're subcontractors. um You know, some slight exaggerations. I probably made some slight exaggerations. It is what it is.
00:14:15
Speaker
But I'm going to skip to the end here because this is probably... My biggest mistake, or I don't know, something that I was wracking my brain about how I could have handled this better. cause You'll hear what happens at the end, and he basically checkmates me at the end. So so I'm going to pull up what happens here at the end.
00:14:35
Speaker
You guys can send me your suggestions what I could have done better. You're brave woman, Margaret. wouldn't have brought the TV. I don't mean to be rude, but it's Friday night at 6 p.m.
00:14:49
Speaker
I don't want to leave us arguing in her house all night. Got to work late nights. Friday nights with people around. I don't mind, but it's like a venue for an hour already. don't like keeping people in the house all day for no reason. So we can go back and forth. Do you want to just send her to contract?
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah, we can just send the contract. Do you want to do that, Murray? We can both send the word. Like I said, tonight is pranked, man. <unk> right now got back oh yeah that and then yeah guess i can send your points yeah think there's like i said a couple small things that we could add some value to you but if it's just like the same price and you don't care too much about some of these extra small things could get with us and you can go with summer because i don't sound like your brothers are happy with them all that yeah we can just do that and so we don't keep you waiting you want me to send it right now and then guess pull back up yeah yeah that'll be good
00:15:44
Speaker
Okay, so here's where it went really wrong for me. And probably would have been in the same outcome either way. But you can hear he took control. He took back the control. He just said, hey, we'll send the contracts.
00:15:56
Speaker
And that's that. But then as we're getting up, This guy, he just stays at the table. Margaret comes over. um i get chewed out of the house.
00:16:08
Speaker
And that's it. That was game over. So I think I could have took back control. just said, hey, Margaret, let's both send what we have over. And then you can think about it without being pressured by two people here at your table.
00:16:21
Speaker
then just get back to both of us. Let us know which one you decide. But I let him take the control and I kind of lost the power struggle at that point. um I got kicked out of the house. They both kind of tag team me and that was that. So I was kicking myself when I got out of the house.
00:16:37
Speaker
um I was trying to think, is there anything more I could do on this? So I did end up actually going back and swear it probably got really awkward, but I went and knocked the door again because they both wanted me to send over a contract.
00:16:50
Speaker
But as I'm... Thinking about it, I'm like, you know what I can't even send a contract. can send a proposal. But until we've run credit and I got her approved for something, I can't actually send over a contract with her numbers.
00:17:02
Speaker
So I went back just to let her know, hey, here's the numbers I got. um We can... Just do the soft credit check and get you over an actual contract. Sorry to bother you, but and that's how we have to do it. so you can get the price match. And at that point, I think um you know she was already in the process of looking like signing up with the Sunrun guy. She told me to, you know what, just forget about it. I'm going Sunrun. I'm like, well, don't you want to at least get the best price if I can send you over the better numbers and then have them price match it?
00:17:33
Speaker
And I could see at this point, the Sunrun guy, he was he was definitely not happy that I knocked the door again and that I was trying to meddle with this cell. And he's probably like, this guy, he's coming to just have me make a less on the deal or whatever.
00:17:48
Speaker
But I'm just like, hey, well, if you said you can price match it, then why don't we get her the best numbers? I'll send you this. But at that point, she didn't even want to talk to me anymore. And it was like she was going with the Sunrun guy. So unique experience.
00:18:02
Speaker
um Could have handled a little bit better. Could have not let it let myself get walked on like that. But was just trying to like think, how can I do this without having it be an awkward, weird experience for the homeowner? I don't think I avoided that. But next time, you know i definitely probably want to be there at the same time.
00:18:20
Speaker
as the other guy. not so much innate, like a negative, negative vibe when I get in there. I just asked the homeowner. I think I did good at asking her what were the most important things she wanted. But another question I could ask is, if everything's the same, which one are going to choose? Okay, so I hope you enjoyed some of the footage.
00:18:38
Speaker
Hopefully it ah entertained you, if anything else. Hey, but make sure before we end this episode, wanted to invite you to check out the next episode. We've got the one, the only Melissa Ramiza coming on.
00:18:51
Speaker
This girl, she is planning some of the best blitzes that I've ever heard of. um So make sure you tune into next episode. We've got her joining the show and she is just dropping her exact model of how she recruited hundreds and hundreds of reps to her blitzes.
00:19:07
Speaker
how they've closed thousands of deals this year, and how you can do the same. So make sure you tune in and we'll see on the next episode. Hey, solopreneurs, quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience that wisdom and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day? 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. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals
00:19:46
Speaker
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