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How To Manage Your Solar Accounts Like A Pro
91 Plays1 year ago
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Taylor's Journey from Solopreneur to Solar Success
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur, you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery, and you are about to become one.
Challenges and Strategies in Solar Panel Installation
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
Something that has been a little bit of a struggle this year for me is getting the accounts, the glass to the roof, which is the most important part, because we all know we don't get paid until we get that glass on the roof.
00:00:58
Speaker
So today I'm going to be discussing some things that I have recently changed, some strategies I've started implementing to help with your post-sell management to help actually get your accounts installed.
00:01:10
Speaker
Because you might be selling a lot, but none of that matters if you can't get the solar up on the rooftop.
00:01:17
Speaker
So we're going to be talking about that and a whole lot more.
00:01:19
Speaker
Thanks for coming on the podcast for listening today.
00:01:22
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:23
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry and make a whole lot more money and make and save a lot of people more money.
00:01:34
Speaker
And if you're new to the podcast, we are releasing fresh content for you every Tuesday and Friday for the most part.
00:01:42
Speaker
We're
00:01:43
Speaker
Occasionally life gets busy, but pretty much every Tuesday, Friday, we're coming at you with content.
00:01:48
Speaker
So if you have not already, please share the show.
00:01:52
Speaker
Please send this to people who have not yet reached their potential in solar, even if they have.
00:01:57
Speaker
I think there's a lot of things in here.
00:01:59
Speaker
especially from some of the amazing guests we have coming on.
00:02:02
Speaker
They can open your perspective and really help you see what's possible on the show.
00:02:06
Speaker
And that's a big reason I've kept this going is being able to connect with just, I think, the best people in the world at Cell & Solar.
00:02:15
Speaker
And then, of course, hearing the feedback from great listeners like yourself.
00:02:19
Speaker
Yes, let's get into the show.
00:02:20
Speaker
Again, I've been struggling a little bit this year.
00:02:24
Speaker
especially early on in the year.
00:02:26
Speaker
I was selling a lot of accounts, but just my ratio from sign to install was much lower than I wanted it to be.
00:02:34
Speaker
And recently I've implemented some things that has been helping.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then just in talking with people that are elite, I think about getting the glass to roof and about managing their accounts, gotten some great strategies that I want to share with all of you.
00:02:48
Speaker
I'm going to give you five tips, maybe five or six, on things you should be doing if you're not already to help push your accounts to install and manage your accounts better, which we all know will help lead to more referrals, will lead to more customer satisfaction, and will make your job much easier.
00:03:07
Speaker
We'll be talking about five or six of these strategies here today.
Effective Solar Account Management
00:03:11
Speaker
As always, if there are things that are helping you, would love to hear them.
00:03:14
Speaker
Um, don't worry if they're top secret, we don't have to talk about them on the show, but tell me, um, feel free to shoot me an email or a DM.
00:03:24
Speaker
I am catching up on DM.
00:03:25
Speaker
So I apologize if you've sent me anything that we haven't responded to.
00:03:29
Speaker
But shoot me a DM or an email over at taylor at solarpreneurs.com.
00:03:33
Speaker
We'd love to hear your feedback.
00:03:34
Speaker
Okay, so let's get into it.
00:03:36
Speaker
The five or six things.
00:03:37
Speaker
And so the first one hopefully should be a no-brainer, but that is you need to close clean accounts.
00:03:44
Speaker
And what do I mean by clean accounts?
00:03:46
Speaker
You need to make sure you're collecting all documents when you sign the deal.
00:03:51
Speaker
Every market I know of, you need to get a utility bill.
00:03:54
Speaker
You need to sign every utility doc typically.
00:04:00
Speaker
You need to sign, of course, the customer agreements.
00:04:02
Speaker
Depending on the market, there may be more forms, more documents you need to fill out.
00:04:07
Speaker
And some of it you might not need right at the point of sale.
00:04:11
Speaker
But I would just recommend as much as you can get done in
00:04:14
Speaker
get it done right away.
00:04:16
Speaker
I recently have been in a neighborhood where I know they have an HOA.
00:04:20
Speaker
I've closed a lot of accounts in the specific neighborhood.
00:04:23
Speaker
So instead of waiting to get HOA docs and go back to the home, get signatures, right at the point of sale, I get the signature right away for the HOA document.
00:04:34
Speaker
So I'm like, hey, if I knock this out right away, then makes my life a lot easier on the back end.
00:04:39
Speaker
And
00:04:39
Speaker
So make sure you get everything needed, install the accounts, and it's going to make your life a lot easier.
00:04:47
Speaker
And I think even more important than that, though, is it's just important for the dynamic of the sell.
00:04:52
Speaker
We've talked about how we want to be the people needed, not the needy.
00:04:57
Speaker
And so if you don't collect everything at the point of sell, then all of a sudden you're changing the whole dynamic where you now have to beg the customer for things.
00:05:05
Speaker
You have to show up as an annoying guy.
00:05:07
Speaker
Oh, sorry, I need this document.
00:05:09
Speaker
I need this.
00:05:10
Speaker
Just makes your life harder.
00:05:11
Speaker
I've literally had people cancel over this whole dynamic change where they start getting annoyed that I'm bugging them for more and more things.
00:05:20
Speaker
And I also did a podcast on this where I actually stole a account from someone because they signed up with another company.
00:05:28
Speaker
The customer or the rep left things undone.
00:05:33
Speaker
Homeowner got annoyed with it and just said, you know what?
00:05:35
Speaker
We're not doing this.
00:05:36
Speaker
So make sure that doesn't happen.
00:05:37
Speaker
You collect everything at the point of sale.
00:05:41
Speaker
Going along with that, make sure you set the expectations, right?
00:05:45
Speaker
I would have some type of leave behind.
00:05:46
Speaker
For us, we have like a company brochure.
00:05:49
Speaker
We leave and it just shows the steps of the installation process, right?
00:05:54
Speaker
You got site survey, you got final design,
00:05:58
Speaker
You got engineering, permitting, probably forgetting a few, but all the steps that shows a timeline of it.
00:06:07
Speaker
And then the most important expectation I would recommend setting is just permission to operate.
00:06:13
Speaker
Depending on where you're at, it may take a long time to actually get permission to operate.
00:06:18
Speaker
for the panels to actually be turned on.
00:06:20
Speaker
So make sure you set that expectation because this is the number one complaint I've gotten from customers.
00:06:26
Speaker
They get their panels up, they think they can turn them on, and they get frustrated because they have to sit months and months and before they even reap the benefits of solar, which they weren't told, which I didn't tell them.
00:06:38
Speaker
So I've learned my lesson.
00:06:40
Speaker
I try to tell everyone I help.
00:06:42
Speaker
hey, it may take two to three months after getting installed to turn these things on.
00:06:48
Speaker
Hopefully it's not that much, but you got to set the proper expectation that it could take a long time.
00:06:54
Speaker
So that's step number one.
00:06:55
Speaker
Number two is use some type of CRM spreadsheet.
00:07:00
Speaker
Just keep track of all your customers, all your deals.
00:07:04
Speaker
Hey, I see people forget all the time because they don't have any type of organization.
00:07:09
Speaker
Hey, I know all of us, we forget things.
00:07:13
Speaker
A lot of people on sales have ADD.
00:07:16
Speaker
We can't remember.
00:07:17
Speaker
So we need some type of spreadsheet at the very minimum, little notes.
00:07:23
Speaker
Just save it in your notes app if you use an iPhone.
00:07:26
Speaker
But keep track of the names.
00:07:28
Speaker
Keep track of promises you made to the customer.
00:07:31
Speaker
I've had it happen in the past where I promised the customer, hey, I'll pay your bill for six months.
00:07:37
Speaker
I'll give you a thousand bucks.
00:07:39
Speaker
And I forgot about this.
00:07:42
Speaker
Then they come, they text me after the install and said, hey, where's my thousand dollars?
00:07:46
Speaker
And didn't even think about it, which can cause some frustration.
00:07:50
Speaker
So make sure you keep track of promises you made to the customer or anything you're going to be getting them.
00:07:57
Speaker
So it doesn't come back to surprise you later.
00:07:59
Speaker
Another thing that just in general, like keep track of names of everyone, maybe in the household.
00:08:08
Speaker
I had a customer recently where the sister was pretty involved in the decision, but she wasn't on the customer agreement.
00:08:18
Speaker
But I've had to go back a few times, get some docs that just came up, HOA for this particular neighborhood to go back for that.
00:08:27
Speaker
And I didn't know the sister's name.
00:08:30
Speaker
I forgot the sister's name and it was just a bad look because I had to go back and ask the sister what her name was again.
00:08:35
Speaker
So just little things like that.
00:08:37
Speaker
Keep track of anything you might want to remember about the customer, about their family in the spreadsheet.
00:08:44
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door to door sales team here in San Diego.
00:08:49
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.
00:08:56
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:09:00
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout, but it's not a door knocking app.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:09:09
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood.
00:09:19
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:09:23
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:09:27
Speaker
But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
00:09:33
Speaker
And they did.
00:09:34
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.
00:09:43
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:09:47
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:09:49
Speaker
Hey, because if, especially if you're signing a lot of accounts,
00:09:53
Speaker
Last week I signed seven, which was a great week.
00:09:56
Speaker
But if I didn't have any systems or processes, if I don't have a CRM in place, if you sign a lot of accounts in one week, it just it gets super overwhelming.
00:10:07
Speaker
So that's why you need to set up these systems now.
00:10:10
Speaker
and get it in place.
00:10:11
Speaker
And then just another point before we get to number three here is if you are a setter, maybe you're new to solar, you might not necessarily have all these things set up at once.
00:10:21
Speaker
But whoever is closing your accounts, send this podcast to them.
00:10:25
Speaker
And I would keep track, even if you are setting your own deals, it's not too early to start setting up your own systems and processes to keep track of your accounts.
00:10:34
Speaker
Because there's a lot of setters I hear from where they don't get updates on their accounts.
00:10:41
Speaker
They're confused what stage in the process their customer is.
00:10:46
Speaker
And yeah, they could use a CRM and a way to track their accounts as well.
00:10:52
Speaker
So even if you're just setting appointments, maybe you're not closing, maybe you're not doing much as far as post-sell goes, massive benefit to keep track of this stuff.
00:11:01
Speaker
Okay, and number three is have a dedicated account management day.
00:11:07
Speaker
For me, it's every Monday I use as my account management day.
00:11:11
Speaker
And that's not to say I'm not going to knock, I'm not going to close, but the majority of the day,
00:11:17
Speaker
Um, I'll probably go out a few hours for knocking or appointments later in the afternoon, but majority of the day I'm spending on, okay, what do I need to do to progress my accounts and going along with, uh, number four, might as well combine these a little bit, but that's have someone that can help you manage the accounts.
00:11:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:38
Speaker
Because what I'm doing on the account management days, I'm going with my account manager, which I have a virtual assistant.
00:11:46
Speaker
She helps with this.
00:11:47
Speaker
And then recently actually got my wife to start helping with it too.
00:11:53
Speaker
Um, and we go through, we have a meeting usually takes about an hour.
00:11:56
Speaker
We go through every single account and we just figure out, okay, is this progressing?
00:12:01
Speaker
What's the update on it from the installer?
00:12:04
Speaker
Is there anything needed from us?
00:12:06
Speaker
Let's call the installer, figure out what they need.
00:12:09
Speaker
So, um, I sit in the background mostly and then my wife and my virtual assistant, they go through the accounts and then I'm just there to kind of like answer questions about them.
00:12:21
Speaker
But it helps.
00:12:21
Speaker
It's been helping it tremendously just progress the accounts faster, get them to install quicker, and then just eliminate any holds on the accounts.
00:12:32
Speaker
Because so many times early on this year,
00:12:36
Speaker
I had holds on accounts.
00:12:38
Speaker
I forgot about things that needed to be done.
00:12:41
Speaker
Then I would go back to the customer a month later and we're like, oh, yeah, we need to do this.
00:12:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I was missing the bill, whatever it was.
00:12:50
Speaker
And it just added a ton of time.
00:12:53
Speaker
Or the worst case was I had some cancel.
00:12:56
Speaker
I actually had a guy last month or a few months back where we forgot about he needed a trust document, I believe it was.
00:13:07
Speaker
And I honestly just forgot about it.
00:13:09
Speaker
I thought it was progressing.
00:13:10
Speaker
Didn't really check on in on in on this particular account.
00:13:14
Speaker
And then by the time I realized, oh, I wasn't doing the weekly meetings at this point, by the way.
00:13:20
Speaker
But by the time we realized this, it was too late, took forever.
00:13:25
Speaker
And the customer just used that as an excuse and was like, you know what?
00:13:28
Speaker
I thought I would be getting installed by now.
00:13:31
Speaker
Let's just forget about it.
00:13:32
Speaker
And that's happened more times than I would like to admit.
00:13:37
Speaker
I have forgotten about holds.
00:13:39
Speaker
And I let it sit there for a while, I come back and customer kind of use it uses as an excuse to cancel.
00:13:45
Speaker
Okay, now maybe they were going to cancel either way.
00:13:48
Speaker
But I know for sure that I've lost some where they would not have canceled.
00:13:54
Speaker
But I dropped the ball.
00:13:55
Speaker
I let the account stagnate, you could say and fell through.
00:14:01
Speaker
So don't make some of those mistakes that I make.
00:14:03
Speaker
That's why we're here.
00:14:03
Speaker
So you can learn from my mistakes.
00:14:06
Speaker
Okay, so three and four, again, is having account management day.
00:14:10
Speaker
For me, it's Monday.
00:14:12
Speaker
Number four, hire someone to help you.
00:14:15
Speaker
And guys, this can even be someone, maybe you have a newer setter on your team, maybe not newer, but maybe you have a experience rep.
00:14:24
Speaker
that they're struggling a little bit with their production.
00:14:28
Speaker
Maybe you have someone you know that understands solar, but they're not in it anymore.
00:14:32
Speaker
You can go to these people, offer them, I don't know, a thousand a month, pay them a percentage of the deal, pay them, I don't know, 150 bucks a kilowatt, whatever, just to manage your pipeline and progress it and give them bonuses if they can get these accounts progressing quicker.
00:14:51
Speaker
If you have someone like that, that understands that, understands the process, they can be a huge help on getting these accounts to install quicker.
00:15:00
Speaker
And it's always worth it.
00:15:01
Speaker
Having another eye on these on accounts, it can never hurt, especially if they understand the process.
00:15:08
Speaker
I know some of our top producers on my team here in San Diego, they've done this.
00:15:13
Speaker
They have reps that were struggling with their production.
00:15:17
Speaker
And they're just they're helping them make a little bit of money on the side.
00:15:20
Speaker
They understand the process of solar and they can tackle a lot of these holds on accounts and they know the game of
Engaging with Customers and Community Building
00:15:27
Speaker
solar.
00:15:27
Speaker
So they know what's needed a lot better.
00:15:29
Speaker
So consider doing that.
00:15:31
Speaker
Hire someone to help you.
00:15:32
Speaker
And then the last point here, number number five.
00:15:38
Speaker
is make sure you are sending weekly updates to your customer.
00:15:42
Speaker
Something I've been doing for a while now, this is something that I feel like I have done a better job about, but I think this might be one of the most important things.
00:15:53
Speaker
Just having that weekly interaction, weekly check-in.
00:15:57
Speaker
You don't want to be that rep that just sells them and then they never hear from again.
00:16:02
Speaker
You want to be sending some type of weekly updates, even if it's the same thing.
00:16:07
Speaker
hey, Mary, we're still waiting on the permits.
00:16:10
Speaker
It's been three weeks now, should be back soon.
00:16:13
Speaker
You send that week after week.
00:16:15
Speaker
Hey, at least they know that you're checking in on the account and that you're still interacting with them.
00:16:20
Speaker
And if they have, I would recommend if they're married, if there's more people in on the decision-making process, I would do a group text if you can and send that weekly updates to everyone involved in the process.
00:16:35
Speaker
And this is something that you can outsource.
00:16:38
Speaker
I have my virtual assistant that does this.
00:16:41
Speaker
After we do our weekly meeting on the accounts, she'll take those updates, notate them in the CRM.
00:16:50
Speaker
that we use and then she will send out the weekly update to the customer and recently started.
00:16:56
Speaker
I was just sending them out through email, but I think even better send them email and text.
00:17:01
Speaker
You want to make sure they see it.
00:17:03
Speaker
People a lot of times don't check their email.
00:17:07
Speaker
So that's the main things that I've been implementing.
00:17:10
Speaker
It's helping a lot.
00:17:12
Speaker
Okay, so again, just to review them.
00:17:14
Speaker
Number one, close clean accounts, collect all documents, make sure you don't leave loose ends, get everything done the right way the first time.
00:17:22
Speaker
Number two, have some type of CRM spreadsheets, notes, way to keep track of all your accounts.
00:17:28
Speaker
Number three, have a dedicated account management day.
00:17:32
Speaker
where you're dedicating the majority of the day, mostly, especially if you have a lot of accounts, right?
00:17:38
Speaker
If you don't have a lot, then maybe it's not going to take the majority of your day, but just have at least a few hours during the week that you set aside to just manage your accounts and check in on them.
00:17:47
Speaker
Make sure there's nothing missing.
00:17:49
Speaker
Number four, hire someone to help you, especially if you are doing volume, if you are doing a lot of accounts,
00:17:55
Speaker
I think it's just too much and too much for you to do alone.
00:17:59
Speaker
You need someone.
00:18:00
Speaker
That's why I had my wife start helping as well as because she's checking on these things daily.
00:18:05
Speaker
So if you get someone that's checking on the accounts daily and then just keeps a to-do list of everything needs to be done, it's just going to help you so much.
00:18:14
Speaker
And it's going to help you be able to devote more of your time to actually selling and creating more opportunities than having to manage your accounts as much every day.
00:18:24
Speaker
And then number five is send weekly updates to the customers, even if there aren't any, make sure you're sending out updates.
00:18:31
Speaker
Okay, so I hope that helps.
00:18:33
Speaker
I know this isn't the most exciting stuff.
00:18:36
Speaker
I know this isn't cells that we usually talk about, but this isn't a very important, very important step of having success in solar.
00:18:44
Speaker
Hey, and it's something that I go through phases where
00:18:48
Speaker
I feel like I don't struggle with account management.
00:18:53
Speaker
And sometimes I drop some of these steps, which I did this year, and then I pay the price.
00:18:57
Speaker
So just set up the systems, right?
00:18:59
Speaker
The first time,
00:19:01
Speaker
have a process in place.
00:19:04
Speaker
And I guarantee you, you're going to make way more money.
00:19:07
Speaker
And you're going to avoid the solar coaster a little bit.
00:19:10
Speaker
Because if you don't have this process, if you don't have a system like this set up, you're going to have way more ups and downs because you're going to see people cancel more often, you know, less referrals, less satisfaction.
00:19:22
Speaker
So set it up right the first time and learn from my mistakes.
00:19:26
Speaker
Hey, so that's it for the podcast.
00:19:28
Speaker
Please let me know if you have any suggestions for guests or topics.
00:19:33
Speaker
And then also leave us a review if you have not yet.
00:19:36
Speaker
That is how we continue the show and the podcast.
00:19:39
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next one.
00:19:43
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:19:45
Speaker
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00:21:00
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.